Transformers: The Movie; Rewrite
by Alaine
Summary: Just what the title says, a rewrite of the Transformers Movie. Starring the Decepticons and minus the Matrix. Please r&r, just to let me know if this completely sucks or not. FINALS ARE OVER AND CHAPTER FOUR IS UP!!!!!
1. Default Chapter Title

A/N: This is not a parody. (Well, okay, maybe I poke a little fun at the Autobots. But for the most part, this is not a parody.) It is the Transformers: The Movie plot the way it should have been written: with focus on the mighty and wonderful Decepticons, apparent Autobot stupidity, and the absence of that ridiculous glowing blue rock that everyone suddenly becomes obsessed with. If you liked the Autobots who made their first appearance in TF:TM, or if you ever thought the Autobots had much brainpower at all, you probably shouldn't read this. However, if you love the Decepticons and/or believe the 'Matrix' was a ridiculous thing to base a plot on, you'll probably enjoy this. P.S. Major changes do not become apparent until after the battle at Autobot City, so please bear with me until then.  
  
  
TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE  
  
Prologue:  
On a small planet vaguely resembling Cybertron, life was going on as usual. Arbulus and Kranix leaned over their desks, ignoring the playful shouts of children outside their laboratory building.   
  
Suddenly, the ground began to tremble and shake so hard, three chemical beakers flew out of the holders and shattered onto the floor. But a chemical spill was the least of Kranix's worries when he happened to glance out the window.  
  
"Arbulus, look! It's Unicron!" he screamed, paicking.  
  
A huge spheroid loomed over the planet's horizen like a large nearby planet. But this was no normal planet. According to books and pictures Kranix had seen in the past (and recognized the orb from) Unicron was a planet sized creature, able to move of it's own accord and gaining energy by ingesting any planet, asteroid, or spaceship so unfortunate as to be in its path.  
  
The two scientists deserted the buildiing and ran out into the street, where the entire planet was in an uproar. Unicron had begun too exert a gravitational pull on the planet, briinging it closer to him. Cars and parts of builldings flew into the air to be sucked into the hole on Unicron's front that served as a mouth.  
  
"The ships! Get to the ships! It's our only chance!" Atbulus screamed, pulling Kranix towards the space bay.   
  
The bridge they ran across crumppled beneath them, sening everyone behind them either plummeting to their death or being sucked into Unicron's chasm.  
  
Arbulus and Kranix ran to two separate one-person vessals. As Arbulus clibed into his, he allowed himself one last look at his vanishing world.  
  
Unicron was upon them now. Two large clawlike incisors extending from his 'mouth' caught a grip on the planet's surface and began to pull it into the waiting chasm.  
  
Two space vessals soared up from the dying world. The latter one, unable to resist the gravitational force of Unicron, plummeted back into the chaos and was sucked inside.  
  
In a matter of minutes, an entire planet had ceased to exist, and its energy sent a power charge through Unicron's huge form.  
  
  
It is the year 2005. The mighty Decepticons have conquered the Planet Cybertron. But, from secret staging grounds on two of Cybertron's moons, the valiant and stubborn Autobots plan to retake the world they and the Decepticons once shared.  
  
Laserbeak flew up from Cybertron's capital towards the planet's largest moon. Though this war was supposedly over, the Autobots obstinately refused to give up their foothold on the moons. It seemed utterly ridiculous, at least to Laserbeak, that they should be this stubborn. Didn't they already have a perfectly decent home on Planet Earth? They were no where near strong enough to annihilate all the Decepticon forces, so why were they wasting their time? Laserbeak tried not to let it bother him. It was immaterial, anyway. Megatron still believed them to be a threat, and Megatron had given Laserbeak a mission. One which he fully intended to carry out, no matter his personal confusion.  
  
He swooped into a landing bay on the moonbase. Carefully evading the security cameras, he maneuvered himself onto a windowledge outside the Autobot's command tower. His small size and skill made infiltration and spy work easy for him. And there was Optimus Prime himself in there! Feeling more than a bit pleased with himself, Laserbeak extended a video/audio recorder from the top of his head.   
  
***  
  
"Ironhide!" Prime called from his deck. "Report to me at once!"  
  
Ironhide glared first at the feeds from spy cameras placed strategically around Cybertron, then up at Prime. What could there be to report? Decepticons, Deceptions everywhere! What good was this idle spying?!  
  
"Every time I look into a monitor, Prahme, mah circuits sizzle!" he snarled. "When are we gonna start busting Decptichops?!"  
  
"I want you to make a special run to Autobot City on Earth!" Prime commanded, ignoring Ironhide's outburst.  
  
"But Prahme--!" the older Autobot sputtered.  
  
"Listen, Ironhide! We don't have enough energon cubes to power a full scale assault." he said firmly, as if that closed the entire issue. "Ready the shuttle for launch!"  
  
Ironhide glared silently at Prime. As if he didn't know perfectly well that his leader was just trying to get rid of him. He was under no illusion that he was as vital to the Autobot team now as he had been in the past. It was all about these young warriors now...no use for old fossils like him. Well, short of shaving thirty years off his age, there was nothing he could do to change that. He left the command tower and headed for the shuttle, never noticing the small creature perched on the outside of the building.  
  
Prime forgot about Ironhide almost as soon as the latter had left the room. He turned back to his monitors. He linked up to the control center on the other side of the moon.  
  
"Jazz, report security status!"  
  
Jazz's face blinked onto the screen. "No sign of Decepticons here, Prime!" he assured his leader cheerfully.  
  
"What about Moonbase two?"  
  
Jazz turned to his second monitor. "Jazz to Moonbase two, Jazz to Moonbase two!"  
  
***  
  
A small yellow Autobot and a human in an 'exo-suit' turned to the monitor.  
  
"Bummblebee and Spike here!" the yellow robot acknowledged.  
  
"We're about to send up a shuttle. Any Deception shenanigans in your area?" Jazz voice asked.  
  
"All clear, Jazz!" Bumblebee said.  
  
Spike opened yet another monitor link, this one to the departing shuttle.  
  
***  
  
"Hey, Ironhide!"  
  
The red Autobot looked up abruptly at the monitor and did his best to put on a face that didn't betray his thoughts. Not that he had to worry. Spike was still talking.  
  
"Tell my soon Daniel I miss him! And tell him not to worry, I'll be coming home as soon as we kick Megatron's tail across the galaxy!"  
  
Ironhide forced a smile. "Will do, Spike!" Was that what he was now, a message carrier? He knew he shouldn't be so bitter. He'd had his day, now it was time for others. Yet somehow that knowledge didn't help much.  
  
***  
  
Back in the main command tower, Prime felt satisfied that the necessary precautions had been taken. Time for lift off.  
  
"Cliffjumper! Commence countdown!" He ordered.  
  
"Five, four, three, two, one...Blast off!" Cliffjumper rattled off.  
  
The shuttle shot away in a burst of flame and energy. Prime watched it disappear, then became aware that Cliffjumper was watching him.  
  
"Now all we need is a little energon...and a lot of luck!" Prime mused out loud. There, that sounded good. Effective, too. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cliffjumper smile, no doubt amazed at his leader's optimism and wisdom. No doubt at all.  
  
***  
  
Laserbeak retracted his recorder and soared away from the moonbase and back to his home. Surely this would be enough for Megatron. As he flew away, he felt a slight twinge of sympathy for that old Autobot. To just be packed off like that... Laserbeak didn't have much experience with old Cybertronians. Not many Decepticons lived that long. He wondered how they would be treated if they did.  
  
***  
  
Soundwave and Shockwave stood waiting at the hatch in the control room's ceiling as Laserbeak descended on the Decepticon headquarters.  
  
"Laserbeak returns, Megatron." Shockwave called calmly over his shoulder.   
  
Laserbeak instinctively moved towards Soundwave, but a slight turn of his master's head told him to go to Megatron instead. Laserbeak obediently flew across the small room and alighted on his leader's extended arm.  
  
"Welcome, Laserbeak!" Megatron smiled. "Unlike some of my OTHER warriors..." he cast a meaningful glance at Starscream, "you never fail me!" Starscream glared at him, but said nothing.   
  
"Soundwave! Play back Laserbeak's findings!" Megatron ordered, and Laserbeak gratefully returned to the safety of Soundwave's chest compartment.  
  
"As you command, Megatron." Soundwave responded in his usual mechanical monotone. He transformed and hooked himself up to a large monitor. The other three Decepticons crowded around the screen as Soundwave played the conversation between Prime and Ironhide, as well as the shuttle liftoff. Megatron smiled as an elaborate scheme came into his mind. The recording finished with Prime's awe-inspiring "now all we need is a little energon...and a lot of luck!"  
  
Megatron grinned. Prime was so very fond of those pointless aphorisms.   
  
"Heh. More than you imagine, Optimus Prime." he spoke to the screen.  
  
***  
  
The Autobot shuttle drifted peacefully through space. Ratchet and Prowl were busy at their respective controls, Ironhide was wallowing in understandable self-pity, and even Brawn was being quiet, for lack of anyone to talk with.  
  
Suddenly, an explosion blasted a hole in the side of the shuttle. The four Autobots barely had time to react before Megatron and most of the Decepticon forces boarded the vessel.  
  
"Megatron! Decepticons!" Brawn screamed a much too late warning.  
  
"Die, Autobots!" Megatron shouted, transforming into gun mode. Starscream grabbed him and began firing.  
  
The Autobots fell quickly. After all, there were only four of them against two dozen Decepticons. Their tattered chassises collapsed to the floor. Soundwave and Thundercracker took over the shuttle's controls.  
  
Megatron transformed back. He overlooked the scene with grim satisfaction. All was going according to plan.  
  
"This was almost too easy, Starscream!" he laughed.  
  
"Much easier, ALMIGHTY Megatron," Starscream's high pitched voice snapped sarcastically, "than attacking the REAL threat! The Autobots moonbase!"  
  
Megatron groaned inwardly, wishing Starscream would just get back into whatever hole he crawled out of. "You're an idiot, Starscream!" he snapped. "When we slip by their early warning systems in their own shuttle, the Autobots will be vanquished forever!"  
  
"How do you figure?! What about the Autobots who aren't IN Autobot city?!" Starscream whined belligerently.  
  
Megatron looked as if he was about either have an anneyurism or murder Starscream or both.  
  
"Autobot City is the stronghold, supply base, and refuge of the Autobots." Soundwave's melodic voice explained calmly. "Without it, the Autobots lose two-thirds of their number and are left with only their two moonbases. Those moonbases are simple to surround and destroy."  
  
"Thank you, Soundwave." Megatron said, and smiled at Starscream as if to reaffirm his point that Starscream was, indeed, an idiot.  
  
Starscream scowled and turned away. It wasn't fair. Soundwave always made him look bad. Stupid brown-nosing radio. Of course Soundwave knew the plan better than he did, chances were Soundwave had come up with the plan in the first place!  
  
Starscream stared out of the gaping hole in the side of the shuttle and looked towards the approaching green and blue planet. /Maybe if I win this battle for us.../ he thought. /Soundwave may be a strategic genius, but he's a second-rate fighter! There's no way he'll ever take my place! But if I can win this one... Just me, nobody else. Me, destroying Optimus Prime all by myself...then they'd see how good I am. They'd know I'm important... They'd all see I'm special./  
  
Ironhide lay on the floor, his energy draining away. Could he try to make one last stand for a cause that no longer wanted him? No...better to age like a Decepticon. That, of course, meant to die...  
  
***  
  
An unfamiliar red and yellow Autobot sat on the edge of a lake next to a small boy, vaguely reminiscent of a young Spike. They both held fishing poles in the water, the Autobot looking rather ridiculous as the pole was too small for him. Yet he seemed to be enjoying it far more than the boy.  
  
"Fish're jumpin' today, huh, Danno?" he chirped happily, though he knew perfectly well they hadn't caught so much as a mackerel in the last three hours.  
  
"Guess so..." the boy murmured absently.  
  
"Hey, whatsa matter?"  
  
"Ah...I dunno, Hot Rod." the boy looked away.  
  
"Come on! You can tell me!" Hot Rod prodded.  
  
"I guess...well...I dunno, it's just that..."  
  
"What?"  
  
"My dad spends more time with Bumblebee than with me or my mom combined!" Daniel spat out.  
  
Hot Rod laughed. "Aw, yeah, they're cute together, huh?" Hot Rod grinned. It didn't even occur to him that a seven-year-old had no business knowing what most of the Autobots already knew about Bumblebee and Spike. But, showing some small amount of misplaced consideration, he added, "It's okay, Daniel! Your dad loves you too, he just can't be here all the time. We ARE fighting a war."  
  
Daniel sat in silence, trying to digest this.  
  
Suddenly, a small beeping noise resounded from Hot Rod's wrist. "Daniel, look! The shuttle's coming! Let's watch it land!" He transformed into a painfully red Ferrari.  
  
Daniel looked slightly stunned. But since he wanted to make Hot Rod explain further what he meant by 'they're cute together', he got into the two-seated red car and allowed Hot Rod to drag him up a small mountain.  
  
About halfway up the aforementioned mountain, an Autobot who looked slightly older even than Ironhide was barking orders at a couple of younger Autobots, who were attempting to put a large roadblock into place.  
  
"A little to the left...a little more...come on, you can do it, you're young!"  
  
Bluestreak glared at the older Autobot. "Kup, why are we doing this, anyway?!"  
  
"Don't talk back to me, you little shit! Somebody oughta teach you to respect your elders!  
  
Bluestreak was about to ask Kup if he'd had his pills today, but an oncoming red blur dissuaded him from thinking of anything but jumping out of the way.  
  
Kup toppled over backwards as Hot Rod sideswiped him. Without so much as an apology, the Ferrari sped past, careening into the roadblock and shattering it into several hundred shards of metal.  
  
"Turbo-revvin' young punk!!" Kup wailed from the side of the road. "I'll straighten you out yet!" Of course, Hot Rod was long out of earshot.  
  
Hot Rod sped to the top of "Lookout Mountain", Daniel in tow. Hot rod let Daniel out, than ran to the edge of the artificial cliff to look through the stationary binoculars situated there. And as he looked up at the descending shuttle, what should he see but a hole in the side of the shuttle and a familiar red and gray jet standing directly in front of that hole.  
  
"Decepticons!" Hot Rod cried, and began blindly firing his lasers at the shuttle.  
  
"Hot Rod?! What are you doing?!" Daniel cried desperately.  
  
"I'll kill you all!!" Hot Rod screamed at the sky.  
  
***  
  
Starscream looked down at Autobot City, still in sulk mode. Well, there it was. The location of the fight that might make or break him. And he was ready. However, he was not ready for the laser beam that shot past his ear a moment later.  
  
"Yaah!" he yelped in shock.  
  
"Starscream, you fool!" Megatron bellowed as more laser beams found their way into the ship. "What in the name of all that is holy do you think you are doing?! IDIOT!! Must you ruin everything?! You've completely blown our cover! Well, thanks to you, we have no choice but to...ATTACK!!!  
  
With that, the Decepticons streamed out of the shuttle, laser cannons shooting madly. Starscream chased after them, angry and embarrassed. It wasn't his fault! Of COURSE the Autobots were bound to see a huge gaping hole in the shuttle! Megatron always blamed him for EVERYTHING!  
  
***  
  
A microscope took careful examination of the skyfull of oncoming Decepticons. As a group of Autobots ran up beside it, it transformed into a small red Autobot.  
  
"Ultra Magnus!" the microscope cried, addressing the largest member of the group, a dumptruck that vaguely resembled Optimus Prime in robot form. "A cursory evaluation of Decepticon capabilities indicates a distinct tactical deficiency!"  
  
Ultra Magnus looked blank. "......Huh?"  
  
A green helicopter beside him spoke up. "What Perceptor means is...we're outnumbered!"  
  
Magnus' face lit up with understanding. "OH! Wow, Springer, you understood that?! You're smart!"  
  
Springer rolled his eyes and turned to the last two members of the party, a pink tinted femme and a blue robot about the size of Perceptor. "Arcee, help me transform the city. Blurr! Spread the alarm to the others! Perceptor! Tell Blaster to radio Prime for reinforcements!"  
  
Blurr and Perceptor took off to perform their tasks. Arcee and Springer were about to run off themselves when Magnus grabbed Springer's arm.  
  
"Wait, Springer!" he whined. "I want to help! What can I do?"  
  
Springer looked up at his supposed commander with badly concealed annoyance. "You can just go back to the lounge and eat a doughnut, okay Magnus?"  
  
"How will that help?" Magnus asked stupidly.  
  
"So when the Decepticons get here there won't be any doughnuts for them to eat and they'll have to go home." Arcee smirked.  
  
"Oh! Okay!" Magnus trotted into a building and out of the story.  
  
Springer and Arcee ran to various points around the city, punching in codes and signaling alarms. The city began to change from a peaceful metal metropolis to Fortress Maximus.  
  
***  
  
Meanwhile, outside the city....  
  
Starscream decided to vent his aggression on the Autobot who had first signaled the alarm: Hot Rod. He plummeted downward from the falling shuttle, raining cannonfire on Lookout Point and severing the artificial cliff from the rest of the mountain. Hot Rod, who had been standing on that cliff, screamed as he fell down the rock face. Starscream, certain he had wiped out his betrayer, set off for the city in search of other Autobot bodies and souls to torment.  
  
"Hot Rod!" Daniel cried in a panic. The boy had had the sense to stay back from the edge, particularly when Hot Rod had started firing. Now he was standing alone where there had once been an impressive mountain. He trembled, not knowing what to do.  
  
And if he was panicked then, he was downright hysterical when a large shadow appeared over him. Shaking like a leaf, he turned to see the indigo Decepticon standing behind him. At this point, he was too scared even to notice the wetness in his pants.  
  
Soundwave shook his head. Some good guys the Autobots were, getting human children involved in this war. The boy looked utterly terrified...of him. Soundwave sighed heavily.  
  
"Buzzsaw, eject." He said quietly, pushing the release button on his shoulder. Buzzsaw, Laserbeak's gold-colored twin, transformed and perched himself on Soundwave's shoulder. The Decepticon communicator turned to the trembling boy before him.  
  
"Do not be afraid, human. I will not harm you. Buzzsaw-" he indicated the condor on his shoulder, "-will return you to your place of abode."  
  
Daniel paled in confusion. Did that big Decepticon just say that bird was going to take him home?  
  
"This is no place for a human...or a child." Soundwave finished sadly as Buzzsaw scooped Daniel up.  
  
"H-hey!" Daniel cried, tears streaming down his face. "Wh-where are you taking me?!"  
  
"What he said." Buzzsaw grunted. "Back to your mommy where you belong. So where is that?"  
  
"P-Portland..." Daniel stammered, too frightened to think up a lie.  
  
Buzzsaw simply squawked in reply to that and took off south, the boy in tow.  
  
Soundwave watched them disappear and then turned his attention to the already mauled city. He knew he shouldn't be worrying about a human. But his mission was becoming so gray around the edges nowadays. Before, it had been simple. Collect energon, wherever you can find it, as much of it as you can find, as soon as possible, and take it back to Cybertron to revitalize the planet. But now...Cybertron was restored, power flowed in the veins of the planet once again, he and his cassettes could live on their homeworld in relative peace...   
  
So what was he still fighting for?  
  
The sound of cannon-fire from the city snapped him out of his thoughts. There was no time for this. No matter what the reason, his place was at Megatron's side. No matter where that might take them both. He headed for Autobot City.  
  
***  
  
Several rock ledges below Soundwave, Kup tried his best to pull Hot Rod out from under a pile of rock.  
  
"I'm getting too old for this stuff...." Kup muttered as Hot Rod surfaced. "You okay, kid?"  
  
"Y-yeah..." Hot Rod stammered. "Wait...Daniel!" He glanced desperately back up at the spot where Lookout Point once stood. Empty rubble. "Oh my god..." he moaned.  
  
Two more Decepticon jets whizzed over their heads. "Come on, kid! We have to get back to the city!" Kup tugged Hot Rod's arm.  
  
"Daniel..." Hot Rod whispered in a shaky voice.  
  
"There's nothing you can do for him now, son. Let's go!" Kup tried to be gentle with the young Autobot, but urgency prevented time for proper grief. "Come on, transform!"  
  
Slowly and deftly, Hot Rod transformed and followed the transformed Kup back to Autobot City.  
  
They barely made it over a retracting bridge back into the walls. Normally, Hot Rod would have been excited about this whole adventure of chases and close calls. But he was in shock.  
  
He had killed Daniel. He was sure of that. Oh, great universes, how was he going to tell Spike?  
  
***  
Inside the transforming city, Starscream had found some more Autobot stragglers to torment. Springer and Arcee ran desperately through a rapidly shrinking tunnel trying to escape his cannons.  
  
"Pathetic fools! There's no escape!" Starscream screeched at the top of his voice. He was, as always, getting a strange sort of enjoyment out of this.  
  
But unfortunately for Starscream, there was an escape. The two Autobots disappeared through a hatch at the far end of the tunnel, leaving Starscream trapped beneath rapidly closing panels. He shot upwards, trying to make it through the small bit of an opening.  
  
The panels clamped shut, trapping Starscream's left foot. And yet another pair of panels were rapidly moving in to crush him. He glanced about in a panic. He couldn't die like this! But there seemed to be only one other option...  
  
Wincing and looking away, he aimed the laser mounted on his arm and fired.  
  
"AAAUUUUGH!!!!!! MY FOOT!!!!!" he wailed as he barely escaped the jaws of death.  
  
***  
  
On another side of the city, Perceptor climbed up into a very conspicuous communications tower. Blaster screamed something indecipherable as he knocked the Insecticons off the tower via laser.  
  
"Hey, Perceptor!" he called over his shoulder. "What's shakin'? Other'n this fortress...."  
  
"Blaster!" Perceptor gasped breathlessly, "Ultra Magnus-er-I mean Springer-er-I don't know- Oh, just radio Prime on Moonbase one!"  
  
"Alright!" Blaster sounded way too happy. He transformed and hooked himself up to the radio dish above his head. "Optimus Prime, do you read me? The Decepticons are blitzing Autobot City! We're really taking a pounding! Don't know how much longer we can hold out!" he transmitted.  
  
***  
  
Outside, Soundwave landed beside Megatron and drew his gun. Megatron didn't notice Soundwave's sudden arrival, but he did notice the wavelengths emitting from the communication tower.  
  
"Soundwave! Jam that transmission!"  
  
Soundwave stepped forward., and said in his usual to-the-point way, "Rumble, Frenzy, Ravage, Ratbat. Eject. Operation: Interference."   
  
The four cassettes flew out of his chest hatch and onto the tower. Rumble and Frenzy ripped up the radio dish just as Blaster began to repeat his original message.  
  
"First we crack the shell, then we crack the nuts inside!" Rumble laughed. Blaster and Perceptor stood by helplessly and Rumble drove his piledrivers through the glass roof of the tower, and he and his brothers tackled Perceptor.  
  
Perceptor let out a strangled scream as Frenzy's arms encircled his neck. "Run, Blaster! Save yourself!" he cried.   
  
"Um....okay!" Blaster turned and ran as the four Decepticon cassettes ripped Perceptor to shreds.  
  
***  
  
The battle lasted all through the night, and by morning the Autobots' chances seemed slim to none.  
  
"Their defenses are broken! Let the slaughter begin!" Megatron bellowed triumphantly. Devastator ripped open a few more walls, and Megatron was about to get back in on the fun himself when he noticed something coming...  
  
***  
  
Optimus Prime looked over the sorry spectacle of Autobot City. This had to be the most intelligent move the Decepticons had ever made against them. Soundwave must have thought of it. This was awful. Destruction, dead chassises...and Devastator right in the thick of it. Well, at least that could be dealt with.  
  
"Dinobots!" he called to the other occupants of the ship. "Destroy Devastator!"  
  
"Me Grimlock LOVE challenge!" Grimlock bellowed as all four Dinobots leaped out of the bottom of the shuttle and transformed.  
  
They crashed headlong into Devastator. But their brute strength and number were no match for Devastator's skill.  
  
***  
  
Even from several yards away, Prime could see that the Dinobots had lost their battle. This was NOT good. The Decepticons were stronger than ever before. Watching carnage unfold before him, it was all the normally calm Autobot leader could do not to run away screaming in a total panic. Why didn't the Decepticons run out of energy, or make a stupid mistake, or walk into a trap, or one of the other things they always did right when it seemed like they had the advantage?!  
  
But however sorely he was tempted to just get put of there and wait for a miracle to happen, Optimus could feel Sunstreaker and Hound's eyes on his back. If there was going to be a miracle, he would have to make it himself.  
  
"Megatron must be stopped...no matter the cost!" Prime said, trying to feel as courageous as he sounded.  
  
He transformed and charged the Decpticon lines...alone. Part of him knew it was suicide. That same part didn't care. Which was better, to survive while your dream is ground into the dirt or to go down fighting? Optimus didn't want to imagine a future without the cause he had devoted himself to or the friends he cared for so much. Those two things were his life. Now his friends were dead, had died fighting, and his cause, to bring Cybertron back to the Autobots, was falling before his eyes. He had to die with them. He couldn't go on without them.  
  
Before he realized it, he was face to face with his arch-nemesis. "Megatron!" he shouted defiantly.  
  
Megatron smirked. So here he was. the Autobot leader who knew he had lost. And now was making one last noble stand. How heroic.  
  
"One shall stand, one shall fall!" Optimus said in a clear tone that betrayed absolutely none of the fear and uncertainty he felt.  
  
"Why throw away your life so recklessly? You can still escape." Megatron scoffed.  
  
"I guess you just don't know anything about me, Megatron." Optimus prepared to attack.  
  
"Oh, I think I know more than you realize." Megatron grinned before lunging into the Autobot he had spent the last twenty years trying to annihilate. "I'll crush you with my bare hands, o great heroic martyr!"  
  
And so the battle that had been two decades in the making ensued. Megatron vs. Optimus Prime. One on one. Optimus was larger, but Megatron had more energy from fighting. And it became clear that Optimus was outmatched.  
  
***  
  
Hot Rod watched the battle between the two leaders with detached interest. He was still wallowing in a pit of his own guilt.  
  
Daniel hadn't wanted to go up that mountain. Hot Rod had forced him, then Hot Rod had started firing on the shuttle and provoked that Decepticon. And now Daniel was dead. Because of his mistake. It was too much for Hot Rod to take. He just wanted to roll over and die...  
  
He looked back up at the battle and gasped. Megatron was on the ground! Optimus stood over the Deceticon leader, laser cannon in hand. He was going to win! Hot Rod's spirits lifted at this knowledge, and he ran forward to get a closer look.  
  
He stayed back from the battlefield, a few hundred feet behind Megatron. The Decepticon was begging for mercy! Hot Rod almost laughed out loud. It was going to be okay now. The battle was won. But....wait, what was that? A gun on the ground, out of Optimus' sight?  
  
***  
  
Megatron inched forward on his knees as he begged Optimus to spare him. If he could just reach that gun...  
  
"You, who are without mercy, now plead for it?!" Optimus scoffed breathlessly, aiming the cannon at Megatron's head. "I thought you were made of sterner stuff."  
  
/And you were right!/ Megatron thought, snatching up the gun.  
  
"Optimus! Look out!" a voice behind Megatron shouted.  
  
Optimus' head jerked up. Megatron didn't waste time checking to see who had yelled. He seized the moment of distraction and pounded three shots into his opponent's midsection.  
  
No sooner did Optimus see Hot Rod running towards him than he felt three painful blasts slam into his body. "Hot Rod...Get back!" he cried weakly before doubling over in pain.  
  
Hot Rod tried to grab Megatron and wrestle him to the ground, but Megatron easily shoved him aside and into a what was left of a brick wall. He had no time for some insignificant would-be hero. This was the moment he waited for all his life.  
  
"I would have waited and eternity for this!" he sneered, sadistic joy blocking physical pain. "It's OVER, Prime!" he breathed in triumph.  
  
A broken and weak Optimus looked up at him with the determination of a desperate man. "N-Never!" he screamed, and with the last of his strength, the Autobot leader lunged up and slammed Megatron in the jaw with both his fists.  
  
It wasn't a particularly hard blow, but it sent Megatron reeling off balance and he stumbled off the edge of the platform they had fought their way onto. He crashed painfully into several broken pieces of lower platforms before finally landing on the ground below with a crash.  
  
Optimus crumpled to the ground, fully exhausted. Hot Rod pulled himself up and ran to his leader's side. Kneeling by Optimus, the young Autobot wanted nothing more than to find a decent gun and shoot himself in the head. Once again, his stupidity had killed a friend.  
  
"Optimus...forgive me..." he begged, tears of shame and self-hatred running down his face.  
  
***  
  
A few dozen feet below them, Soundwave and Starscream ran to the fallen Megatron. But as Soundwave was trying to figure out the best way to move Megatron without hurting him, Starscream began to laugh spitefully.  
  
"How do you feel, MIGHTY Megatron?!" he cackled triumphantly. He kicked Meagtron hard in the gut and laughed as his leader curled into a fetal position in pain. He was about to try that again when Soundwave grabbed his arm with more roughness than Starscream ever remembered seeing from him.  
  
"Enough." Soundwave said, firmly and with a touch of anger. Slightly taken aback at even such a small display of aggression (and coming from Soundwave, of all people!) Starscream jerked away.  
  
"Astrotrain!" he yelled, trying to hide his unsteadiness, "Transform and get us out of here!" Flustered or not, no one could tell the proper time for retreat better than Starscream.  
  
"D-don't leave me, Soundwave..." Megatron moaned weakly.  
  
Soundwave knelt down beside his leader. "Do you really think I would?" he said quietly, gently lifting Megatron into his arms.  
  
Astrotrain transformed into train mode and opened his back hatch for the Decepticons to climb in. As Soundwave carried Megatron to the craft (and Rumble made himself useful by carrying Megatron's gun), he could see several other members of their group doing the same. Carrying wounded comrades onto Astrotrain. Soundwave smiled a little, hoping the Autobots noticed that too. He resented the accusation that the Decepticons didn't care about each other. With perhaps the exception of the vagrant Insecticons, the Decepticons were a team as much as the Autobots were.  
  
Soundwave set Megatron down near the back of Astrotrain's passenger area. He could hear the Autobots cheering, praising Optimus' courage, and shooting at the unfortunate Decepticons who were desperately trying to make it to their escape vehicle in one piece.  
  
"Just rest here. We'll be going in a minute." Soundwave assured Megatron, who gratefully sank back against the wall. "I'll be right back." he got up and walked around, taking a quick check of Astrotrain's other passengers.  
  
Rumble was curled up near the hatch, still clutching Megatron's gun. Ravage and Frenzy were curled up together against the adjacent wall. Ratbat, Laserbeak, and Buzzsaw were perched on a bar over head. They were all here, and none of them seemed injured. Well, that was a load off Soundwave's mind.   
  
"Buzzsaw." he called. "Did you take the child home?"  
  
"Yeah." Buzzsaw squawked. "His mom threw a frying pan at me! But he's okay."  
  
Soundwave smiled. "Well done. You three stay up there until we get home." He said, addressing all three airborne cassettes. They made various noises of consent.  
  
"Astrotrain! Take off!" Starscream's voice ordered as the last of the Decepticons stumbled into the vehicle. Soundwave glanced back at Megatron. He seemed to be sleeping. Well, he'd be alright. Soundwave crossed the small chamber and sat down next to the trembling Rumble.  
  
"Are you alright?" he asked the small Decepticon gently.  
  
Rumble nodded, but curled up against Soundwave's side like a frightened child. Soundwave put a comforting arm around him as Astrotrain changed to spaceship mode and took off.  
  
to be continued.... 


	2. Default Chapter Title

A/N: This segment rated PG-13 for swearing and mild yaoi content (bet you're wondering how I managed that with a bunch of asexual robots, huh? ^_^) This episode also introduces the only 'new' character I can stand.....WHEELIE!!!! Well, I think he's kinda cute. (Just give the poor kid a chance, c'mon, huh?)  
  
  
Optimus Prime lay on the examination table of Ratchet's half annihilated repair bay. Kup and Springer stood over him, trying to curb the flow of some of the more serious energy leaks. But their lack of medical expertise plus lack of equipment made it more difficult than it already would have been.  
  
Blurr dashed about the room in a panic, attempting to help but in reality doing nothing but driving the others mad. Arcee had been busy trying to find some Autobots with even a spark of life left in them, but in the end the only functional Autobots she had managed to bring back were Swoop and Blaster. Now Blaster lay asleep on a cot as she bandaged Swoop's tattered wing and tried to lessen both his physical pain and the pain of having lost his entire team that morning.  
  
Hot Rod sat in a dark corner of the room, knees pulled up to his chest. He knew he should at least be trying to help the others, but somehow he couldn't bear to face them. He had killed Optimus Prime. He had killed Daniel. He was a horrible, stupid failure! His logic circuits told him that Starscream killed Daniel and Optimus wasn't even dead yet, but he still felt that had it not been for his interference, they would both still be all right.  
  
"Hot Rod?" It was Arcee. Hot Rod looked down, ashamed to meet her eyes.  
  
"Hot Rod, can you PLEASE come here and help me?" Arcee called to him again, a bit of annoyance slipping into her voice. Whether the kid blamed himself for Optimus' injuries or not was his problem. But he had no right at all to be sitting there idly while there was so much work to be done!  
  
In a lethargic daze, Hot Rod got up and held Swoop's wing for Arcee as she tried to fuse the wires back together. She glanced at the forlorn expression on his face and felt a small pang of guilt for being so harsh with him. But it couldn't be helped. She'd talk to him about what happened later, when lives didn't hang in the balance.  
  
Optimus' optics flickered open. At first he didn't recognize the two figures standing above him. Then he remembered. Springer and Kup. Both very new members (though Kup was rather old), stationed in the city. He was unable to move, but he tried to look around as much as he could anyway. He could see he was in Ratchet's repair bay...but then where was Ratchet?  
  
Then the realization hit him. Ratchet had been on that first shuttle into Autobot City yesterday. He was gone. At this thought, uncalled for memories of charred and broken bodies flooded his mind. The Dinobots. Windcharger. Hound. Mirage. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. Wheeljack. He had seen their bodies, half buried in rubble as he drove through the battlefield in search of Megatron. He had been able to put them out of his mind then. But now all he could think of was their broken forms and of Ratchet, Prowl, Brawn, and Ironhide, killed on the shuttle.  
  
/And here I am, still alive while they are dead./ he thought. /What kind of leader am I, not to be dead with them?/ Mental strength crumbling under his heavy thoughts, he let out a low moan.  
  
"Optimus?!" Springer exclaimed. "You're awake?"  
  
"You just hang in there." Kup said. "We'll fix you....somehow." he added the last word under his breath.  
  
"N-no...I-I'll be...fine.. Attend to the others first..." Optimus managed weakly.  
  
The other two paused and exchanged a pained glance. Then they looked down, unable to meet Optimus' questioning gaze.  
  
"Wh--where are the others?" Their leader stammered, sure of the answer but afraid to ask. Springer and Kup didn't answer, but their expressions said enough. Optimus collapsed mentally, emotional wounds now far worse than physical ones. They were gone...all of them. And here he was, surrounded by strangers...and apparently not going to die.  
  
As if to confirm the last thought, Kup spoke up. "You should be okay. You'll be weak for a while, but we patched up the big holes...just take it easy for a few weeks."  
  
/Just let me die.../ Optimus thought. But he nodded weakly in spite of himself. In a few minutes, he was asleep.  
  
***  
  
In the vast space between Earth and Cybertron, Astrotrain's spaceship mode trembled with his huge burden.  
  
"Jettison some weight or I'll never make it to Cybertron!" he crackled over the speakers to no one in particular.  
  
"Fellow Decepticons!" Starscream shouted, standing at the head of the vessel, "Astrotrain has requested that we lighten our burden!"  
  
Starscream's shrill yell woke Soundwave up. He glanced up drowsily from the spot in the hull where he and Rumble had fallen asleep.  
  
"In that case I say it is survival of the fittest!" Hook declared.  
  
"Do I hear a second on that?" Starscream asked the general assembly, smirking.  
  
"What's goin' on?" Rumble murmured beside Soundwave.  
  
"Starscream's being an ass." Soundwave muttered. What was that treacherous jet planning? And why was putting ANYTHING to a vote? As second-in-command, he was honorary leader until Megatron woke up. Speaking of which...  
  
"AYE!!!" shouted any Decepticon who wasn't badly injured.  
  
"And against?" Starscream continued.  
  
"Nay..." the injured Decepticons cried weakly.  
  
"The aye's have it!" Starscream declared, and in one horrible second Soundwave realized what was happening.  
  
"Starscream, what are you doing?!" Soundwave yelled, but he was pushed to the ground by the Constructicons. The indigo communicator could only watch helplessly as Skywarp, Thundercracker, and the Insecticons were thrown off the ship through a side hatch.  
  
"Oh, stars..." Soundwave shook his head in disbelief. He had never believed Megatron's second as bad as this!   
  
Oh great gods. MEGATRON!  
  
On the other side of the ship, Starscream lifted Megatron up and carried him to the hatch. With a defiant smirk on his face, he held his crippled leader outwards.  
  
"Oh, how it pains me to do this!" he didn't even bother to hide his grin.  
  
"W-wait...I still function..." Megatron rasped.  
  
"Starscream!" Soundwave's voice shouted from behind them.  
  
/Stupidly loyal to the last./ Starscream thought contemptuously.  
  
"Oh, well, I suppose we could throw Frenzy and Ravage out instead!" Starscream shouted the names of the two cassettes within his view. Soundwave fell silent. /Heh. Knew that would work./ Emotional attachments were ever so much fun to exploit.  
  
"Starscream, you fucking bastard!" Rumble shouted in the background. Frenzy and Ravage scrambled back to Soundwave under a sea of legs. They didn't want to be caught.  
  
"When he's right...he's right..." Megatron agreed, putting as much hatred as he could manage into his voice.  
  
"It's the last time you two gang up on ME!" Starscream snarled, throwing Megatron out into space.  
  
"Starscreeeeeeam!" Megatron's voice faded away.  
  
All six of Soundwave's cassettes jumped back into his chest hatch. He couldn't risk them again. Once they were safe inside, Soundwave collapsed backwards, not caring at all about the battle for leadership Starscream had started. Stupid bastard really knew which buttons to push. To try to make Soundwave decide between Megatron and the cassettes... His best friend or his children? Who could make that choice? He tried to remain calm. He'd seen Megatron in worse scrapes than this. Once they landed on Cybertron, he could take a ship out, collect Megatron and the others...then they could all consult as to what was to be done about Starscream.  
  
As always, a part of him tried to understand the Seeker's mentality. Megatron's absence would give him a chance to look good. And threatening the cassettes was the ideal way to get Soundwave out of the way. And since Megatron and Soundwave were the ones who always made Starscream look bad...his actions were, from an objective point, understandable.  
  
But even so, that Decepticon should be either in prison or in therapy!  
  
***  
  
Megatron floated limply in space. He figured he might as well just take a long nap. He wasn't going to die from lack of pressure or oxygen, being a robot, and there were no planets, stars, or anythings in the area to exert gravity...and since he was too damaged and exhausted to move himself, he could count on not going anywhere for a while.  
  
He didn't blame Soundwave in the slightest for not helping. Megatron hardly expected him to allow his cassettes to be thrown out into space like this. Damn Starscream. He just added that one to his ever-growing list of things to kill that stupid jet for.  
  
Looking around him, he could see Thundercracker and Skywarp floating nearby. The Insecticons were above him, but tired as he was, he couldn't turn himself to see them. He was about to try to contact the two jets and see if they could somehow combine their energy to get out of here when he realized he was moving.  
  
Wait...moving?  
  
Yes, he was definitely moving. As if pulled by gravity. But that made no sense! They were no where near a star or a planet or...  
  
"AAAGH!!" Megatron screamed involuntarily. What in the blue fuck was that?!  
  
Apparently, 'that' was the thing exerting gravitational force. It looked like an orange version of the planet Uranus...only it was moving quite quickly and by its own volition. If Megatron had had the energy, he would have used it to blast himself out of there. But as it was he had no choice but to allow it to suck him in. And just to make things even more unnerving, he stopped dead when he was only a few hundred feet from the thing.  
  
"Welcome, Megatron." a huge voice said.  
  
"Wh--who said that?" Megatron groaned, though he had a sick feeling he knew who had said that.  
  
"I am Unicron."  
  
/Maybe it's some sort of ship.../ Megatron considered. Playing on that theory, he called, "Show yourself!" His voice was less than commanding and intimidating, but that was the least of his concerns.  
  
"I have summoned you here for a purpose." Unicron declared, ignoring the request.  
  
Now that rubbed Megatron's pride the wrong way. "Nobody summons Megatron!" he rasped, raising his fist to enforce the point.  
  
"Then it pleases me to be the first."  
  
Conceited bastard. "State your business!" Megatron tried to sound authoritative and failed miserably.  
  
"This is my command. I will supply you with a new body and new troops to command. And you will destroy the Autobots."  
  
"What?" Megatron was confused. Why was this thing ordering him to destroy the Autobots? Hadn't he always tried to destroy the Autobots?  
  
"Destroy the Autobots. With the power I will give you, you will not fail as you have in the past."  
  
"Fail?!" Megatron cried indignantly. He HAD failed, but that was beside the point.  
  
"You are a fool. But under my orders you will be put to good use." Unicron paused. "You belong to me now."  
  
Now THAT was the last straw. "I BELONG TO NOBODY!!!" Megatron screamed in outrage. So what if this monster planet could annihilate him? He wasn't going to be its slave, not for all the new troops and new bodies in the universe! Besides, he liked his current body just fine...well, at least when it was functional.  
  
"Perhaps I misjudged you."  
  
"Perhaps you did! Now let me GO!" Megatron snapped.  
  
A sudden blast of energy, seeming to emit from the chasm before Megatron, sent the Decepticon reeling through space at several hundred miles an hour. Unicron passed through the remaining Decepticons with extraordinary speed, not paying attention to any of them.  
  
"Well..." Thundercracker muttered as the large planet moved away. "That was thoroughly weird."  
  
***  
  
Soundwave loaded the last bag of repair parts into the shuttle. He was sure that some of the others would need immediate attention after having been left alone in space for so long. Starscream had ultimately won the power brawl that had taken place inside Astrotrain, and now the sound from the trumpets being played at his coronation could be heard even from the space port.  
  
"Shouldn't we be there?" Laserbeak asked fretfully, looking in the direction of the ceremony.  
  
"We have more important things to do at the moment." Soundwave told him. "I need your assistance. All of you. Besides, I doubt Starscream will be our leader for long."  
  
"Good. I don't like him." Frenzy grumbled, shifting from foot to foot restlessly. "He was gonna throw me and Ravage out of the ship!" The black feline growled in agreement.  
  
"Now you know I wouldn't have let that happen." Soundwave assured his youngest cassette. "Now get inside, everyone. We don't have any more time to waste."  
  
***  
  
"Fellow Decepticons!" Starscream bellowed.. "As your new leader, I command that we will return to Earth and finish the job Megatron left unfinished! The complete and total extermination of the Autobots!"  
  
This proposal was met by cheers and shouts from the multitude below him. There were many more Decepticons on Cybertron now than there had been in past years. Conquering the planet had earned them a lot of converts. And now it was time to put this manpower to use.  
  
Starscream was in a state of euphoria as the ships were prepared for lift off. They were fueling those ships by HIS command. Those weapons were being charged because HE told them to. They were going to Earth under HIS command and they would destroy the Autobots by HIS leadership and everyone would praise and adore HIM. It was all Starscream had ever wanted. To win a major victory and have everyone know it and honor him for it. He was finally getting his chance.  
  
The Decepticon fleet took off a few moments later, no one particularly noticing the absence of Soundwave and his cassettes. Nor did they notice the huge orange orb descending onto their planet from directly above.  
  
***  
  
Soundwave hadn't noticed that orb either. After all, it had only appeared once on the radar screen and had showed up as being way out of their way; high above them. And Soundwave had other things on his mind.   
  
They were approaching the site where Starscream had decided to turn Darwinist. Soundwave could see Thundercracker and Skywarp in his path, and Shrapnel, Kickback, and Bombshell drifting a few yards above them. He slowed the ship and sidled up beside Thundercracker's limp form.  
  
"Ratbat, open the hatch." Soundwave stood up. "Ravage, take the controls." Even with paws instead of hands, the feline could easily pilot the ship for small distances.  
  
Laserbeak, Ratbat, and Buzzsaw flew out of the ship and grabbed onto Thudercracker, pulling him inside. Soundwave got a hold of him as soon as he was close enough and set him down gently on one of the mats he had situated inside the hold of the ship.  
  
"Soundwave?" Thudercracker gasped weakly. "What're you doing here?"   
  
"Bringing you home." Soundwave answered simply, examining the Seeker for any extremely serious damage. Luckily, Thundercracker had been in better shape that the others. Just not good enough to keep himself from being thrown out of the ship.  
  
Thudercracker lay down in stunned silence. He had genuinely expected to drift out there until his fuel supply ran out. But now here was Soundwave, patching up the hole in his leg...this on top of that weird planet thing's appearance was making this one of the most interesting days of Thundercracker's life.  
  
Ravage maneuvered the ship, Laserbeak, Buzzsaw, and Ratbat retrieved their comrades, Soundwave, Rumble, and Frenzy performed first aid on the most serious wounds, and after about an hour all the floating Decepticons were lying in the hold of the shuttle, relatively stable.  
  
All except one.  
  
Soundwave watched the blank radar screen with growing desperation. Where was Megatron? He had been jettisoned only a few moments after the others, and he certainly hadn't had the strength to move himself anywhere. So where WAS he?  
  
"Hey, where's Megatron?" Rumble voiced his master's concern.  
  
That produced a small stir among the injured Decepticons.  
  
"You won't find him around here!" Shrapnel smirked.  
  
"He's long gone!" Bombshell assented.  
  
"What happened?" Soundwave asked with all the calm he could muster.  
  
"You're not gonna believe this..." Thundercracker began.  
  
"But the weirdest thing happened after you guys left..." Skywarp picked up.  
  
Continuing like that for the next several minutes, the Seekers and the Insecticons related the story of Unicron's appearance and Megatron's disappearance.  
  
When they were finished, Soundwave sat down heavily in the cockpit chair, thoroughly stunned. Megatron...vanished into space?  
  
"Well, we're just going to have to find him, then." Soundwave said.  
  
"Hey! What about the rest of us?!" Kickback shouted.  
  
Soundwave's head jerked up. He hadn't meant to say that aloud. "Oh, of course I'm going to take all of you back to Cybertron first." he amended quickly.  
  
"Well, good." Kickback muttered, settling back onto his mat.  
  
Soundwave took the controls from Ravage and proceeded to do just that. But he silently swore to return. He had promised Megatron he would never let him down. Now was the time to keep that promise.  
  
***  
  
Jazz snored loudly. Life on Moonbase One was extremely boring, especially since he and Cliffjumper were the only ones there. And all the Decepticons were doing down there was coronating Starscream. Big whoop. Oh well, at least it meant Megatron was dead. Unfortunately, Jazz' three hour nap at the monitoring station had sadly caused him to miss Starscream's final speech and the Decepticon fleet taking off for Earth. It might have helped the other Autobots to know about that. But as it was, Jazz didn't wake up until Cliffjumper came up onto the deck and kicked his chair out from under him.  
  
"What are you doing, falling asleep on duty?!" Cilffjumper exclaimed indignantly, as if that wasn't obvious.  
  
"Hey! leave me alone! It's not like there's anything to be watching!" Jazz wailed from the floor  
  
"Oh yeah? Then where'd all the Decepticon ships go, huh?!" Cliffjumper pointed angrily at the left monitor.  
  
"Huh?! Aw, shit..."  
  
"Aw shit indeed! You better radio Earth right now and-" Cliffjumper broke off as a bigger than average blip appeared on the radar screen. "What's that?"  
  
But Jazz wasn't looking at the screen. He had a good view of the sky from his position on the floor. And therefore was in a good position to see the planet like object descending upon them. "Where'd THAT come from?!" he cried in shock, scrambling to his feet.  
  
Cliffjumper looked up at the orange orb. And saw it coming closer. "Who cares, I'm more worried about where its going!" he gasped in answer to Jazz's inquiry.  
  
As if by unspoken agreement, the two Autobots ran for the escape ship on the roof of the control tower as equipment and pieces of metal flew up into the monster's jaws.  
  
The ship's engines roared to life as Unicron's incisors cut into the moon's surface and began pulling it in. But no matter how much power the two injected into their craft, they couldn't so much as get it off the ground.  
  
"Jazz! We're not getting away!" Cliffjumper stated the obvious for the final time as their ship, as well as Moonbase One itself, was swallowed into the depths of Unicron.  
  
***  
  
From Moonbase Two, Bumblebee watched in horror as the other moon vanished into the orange planet's jaws.  
  
"Spike! Open a transmission to Earth! Oh, this is SO not good!"  
  
Spike obediently started the message recorder. "This is Spike and Bumblebee, up here on Moonbase Two!"  
  
"Some...THING, some monster planet, just ripped the first moon to shreds!" Bumblebee began.  
  
"And it's heading this way!" Spike added, as much for their own benefit as for those on Earth.  
  
"We'll try and slow it down!" Bumblebee put in, again, more for their own benefit.  
  
"But you'd better get here fast 'cause we're not gonna-" Spike cut himself off as Unicron's gravitational pull interrupted their transmitting signal.  
  
"Do you think they got it?" Bumblebee asked.  
  
"I hope so..." Spike muttered. "Now what're we gonna do?"  
  
"Self-destruct." Bumblebee said simply.   
  
"What?!"  
  
"Oh, we're leaving first! Come on, we set the self-destruct device on a timer, get the hell offa here, then when he's eating it like he did Moonbase One, it'll explode in his mouth!" Bumblebee doubled over, panting for breath.  
  
"Oh, I get it!" Spike smiled. "Great plan, Bumblebee."  
  
Bumblebee smiled back. "Come on, let's do it!"  
  
They worked quickly as Unicron closed in, wiring the base to a timed self-destruct. Finally, they set the timer for ten seconds, activated the self-destruct, and ran like hell for their ship.  
  
They shot off the moon just as the first quarter of it began to disappear into Unicron's mouth. They continued to travel away as fast as possible as the timer clicked down.  
  
Finally the digits hit zero and the force of the explosion sent Bumblebee and Spike's shuttle reeling. Bumblebee crashed to the floor and Spike was slammed against the back of his chair. Both clamored back up and looked anxiously at the cloud of dust behind them.  
  
"We got him!" Bumblebee exclaimed.  
  
But then the dust cleared. "It isn't even dented!" Spike gasped. "Oh SHIT, what're we gonna do now?!  
  
An undamaged but enraged Unicron sent out his gravity field at maximum energy. NOBODY did that to his meals!  
  
"We-we're being sucked into it!" Bumblebee screamed. The ship, indeed, lurched forward and began to plummet into Unicron's jaws.  
  
"Bumblebee?" Spike whispered.  
  
"Y-yeah, Spike?"  
  
"I-I love you."  
  
Bumblebee managed a smile at the sound of those words. "I know." he whispered back. "I love you too."  
  
The shuttle and the remains of Moonbase Two were devoured by the great orange planet.  
  
***  
  
Megatron woke up. Where he woke up, he had no clue, but he was relatively sure he had woken up. And, strangely enough, he seemed to be fully repaired. But that was pretty far down there on his list of things to be confused about at the moment. He was in the middle of what looked like a Cybertronian version of an Earth swamp. But Cybertron had no swamps. Megatron sat up. How did he get here, anyway? Oh, yeah. That big orange planet that wanted to enslave him. Well, at least he wasn't floating in space anymore. No, this was even better. On some strange planet with metal swamps, completely alo-  
  
"Friend find, look behind!"  
  
"AAAAAGH!" Megatron jumped about fifty feet into the air. He spun around, fumbling for his gun, which had actually gone back to Cybertron with Rumble. And he found himself face to face with an eight foot tall Transformer. (and for a Transformer, that is extremely small.)  
  
"Who...what..?" Megatron stammered. "Did you..." his voice trailed off.  
  
"White bot in ditch." the little robot stated cheerfully, pointing to a large hole a few feet away from them. "But Wheelie fix!" he smiled happily.  
  
Megatron just stared for a moment. Why was this child speaking in rhyme...? Then it hit him. Child. Of course. He remembered Soundwave's cassettes talking in silly rhymes like that when they were very young. It was how children figured out how to use their speech modules or something like that. He was no developmental psychologist. The point was, this was a very small child. And where there were small children, there had to be adult creators.  
  
"You...fixed me? All by yourself?" he asked the smiling boy. Wheelie nodded in assent. "Okay...your name is Wheelie? Well, Wheelie, where are your creators, your home?"  
  
Wheelie stared at him blankly for a moment. "Everywhere is home, Wheelie's all alone!"  
  
Megatron's eyes widened. This child was alone here? He didn't bother asking if others had been killed; the boy probably wouldn't understand. Imagine....a child so small he still speaks in rhymes and talks about himself in the third person out here surviving on his own. Was it possible?  
  
"You're really alone out here? No family or friends?" Megatron asked incredulously.   
  
Wheelie smiled up at him again (or still). "Wheelie say find friend today!"  
  
The Decepticon smiled in spite of himself. That rhyming was probably going to start trying his nerves after a while, but still...this kid was actually rather cute. And besides, he could be useful. To have lived this long, Wheelie must know his way around this rock, wherever it was. And he was too small to be a spy or an informer. Megatron knew from dealing with Soundwave's cassettes how old a child had to be to understand the concept of lying on command. Not to mention the pang of conscience that was telling him just because the boy survived this long didn't mean he would survive much longer out here all alone.  
  
Megatron surprised himself at this last thought. He wasn't aware that he'd had a conscience.  
  
"Well, Wheelie, what do you say we find some sign of civilization, if there is any to be found?  
  
***  
  
While Megatron was getting his bearings and joining forces with a two-year-old, the Earth-bound Autobots stopped their work repairing Autobot City to listen to Bumblebee and Spike's message over Blaster's radio mode.   
  
"All right, everyone, you heard them." Springer said as the message cut off and Blaster transformed back. "Whatever this thing is, we have to stop it." he glanced at Optimus Prime, who was seated on a fallen pillar a couple feet away. It just didn't feel right, a new recruit like him giving orders while their long time leader sat there in silence. But it was now unspoken law around here that nobody could so much as imply that Optimus Prime was currently in no condition to lead anyone, but to make decisions themselves and give the appearance of deferring to him.  
  
"But how, Springer?" Kup spoke up at last. "That thing just chomped one or both of Cybertron's moons. What do we have that can stop something like that?" Unable to answer, the group fell into silent contemplation.  
  
Optimus winced slightly at Kup's statement about moon-chomping. Four more of his old friends...gone. And here was their so-called leader, miles away from anything even resembling danger. He felt, as he had felt for days, that he should have been there. Where 'there' referred to was ever changing, but there was always that feeling of worthlessness for not being wherever 'there' happened to be. He should have been there in the shuttle to Earth, he should have been there in time to save Autobot City, and now he should have been there on Moonbase One with Jazz and Cliffjumper.  
  
"Optimus? Are you alright?" Hot Rod leaned over his shoulder, concerned.  
  
"Hm? Oh, um, yes, Hot Rod, I'm fine, thank you." Optimus murmured absently. The young Autobot had been shadowing Optimus for days now. The Autobot commander understood that Hot Rod blamed himself for Optimus' injuries, even though he shouldn't, and now apparently was trying to make it up to his leader by taking meticulous care of him.  
  
"Still, I think we should go for it!" Blaster was saying. "If nothing else, we might be able to save some of the others. And we can't know anything by just sitting around."  
  
"Oh, so we're going to go out there with no plan and nothing logical to fight it with?" Arcee argued. "What will that do, except get us all killed?"  
  
Blurr said something so fast nobody caught the particulars of it, but he was apparently in favor of going.  
  
Kup nodded. "I'm with blue boy. We oughta give it a go. I've seen worse odds and worse enemies. Why, I remember the time..."  
  
"Um, right." Hot Rod said abruptly, cutting off Kup's reminiscence. "I mean, even if there's a small chance, that's still a chance, right?"  
  
"Am I the only one around here with any common sense?" Arcee muttered under her breath. "Wait, of course I am. I'm the only femme!"  
  
Everyone glanced expectantly at Optimus. This was usually a time for him to make a little speech about fighting against the odds and giving your all for Cybertron, and then everyone would cheer and they'd all set off for their destination, inspired and excited.  
  
Optimus realized that all eyes were on him. Normally, that would be his cue to say something somewhat pointless, yet profound and inspiring. But he didn't feel very inspired. "Well, what can I say?" he began, standing up. "The majority is clearly in favor. The odds are against us, but as Kup says, we have all faced such battles before..."  
  
"Me Swoop no want to fight!" a growling voice interrupted.  
  
Attention swerved off Optimus and onto the Dinobot. Swoop had been unnaturally quiet in the past two days, but then so had Optimus and Hot Rod and pretty much everybody. They had all suffered greatly, but none of them more than Swoop. The Dinobots had been a team, almost a unit, always together, always agreeing on everything. But now Swoop was the only Dinobot left. Even his creator, Wheeljack, was gone.  
  
"Me Swoop no want to fight. Won't be same. No want to." Swoop rasped out before turning away from the others again.  
  
/He's right,/ Optimus thought. /It won't be the same. It will never be the same again./  
  
The Autobots fell into an uncomfortable silence. Swoop had, in his childish way, reminded them of the one thing they had all been trying to keep thier minds off of: The loss of their comrades.  
  
"Come on, everyone..." Springer began quietly. "You know the others would have wanted...Ironhide and everyone else... they would've MADE us go after this thing. They'd have done anything-everything-for Cybertron. If we give up now...all their deaths will've been in vain. For them...we have to try."  
  
Everyone digested this for a few moments. Optimus turned to Springer. "Do we have any functional spacecrafts left?"  
  
"Um...two, I think. They're not the best, but they'll make it." the green helicopter answered.  
  
"Then..." Optimus began. And then, in a stronger voice than anything anyone had heard from him since the battle, "Autobots, to Cybertron!"  
  
The assembled Autobots gave various small cheers and happy sounds of agreement. Those three words were the most inspiring speech their commander had ever given.  
  
***  
  
Soundwave headed towards the only real spaceship left in the Decepticon port, his cassettes running/flying ahead of him. So, Starscream was going to wipe out the Autobots, was he? That had been the first bit of information Shockwave had released when the communicator had brought the injured Decepticons back to the base. That dumb jet was really overdoing it, especially considering the fact that he had only been the leader of the Decepticons for a few hours. And, as Megatron had once said, Starscream couldn't lead ants to a picnic. A part of Soundwave would have been interested in going along, if only for seeing just HOW badly Starscream would screw up. But since the inevitable screw up was likely to cost at least a few Decepticons their lives, Soundwave was perfectly content to keep himself and his cassettes out of it.  
  
"Where are we going, anyways?" Frenzy called from the door of the shuttle.  
  
"We're gonna find Megatron's energy signature and follow it!" Rumble answered for him. "Soundwave just told us that a few minutes ago, dummy!"  
  
"I'm not dumb!" Frenzy wailed.  
  
"Enough!" Soundwave groaned. "Into the shuttle, both of you. We've wasted enough time."  
  
"Soundwave!"  
  
Soundwave turned around at the sound of his name. "Thundercracker?! Skywarp?! What in the universe..."  
  
The two Seekers grinned almost simultaneously. "We're coming with you!" Skywarp announced.  
  
"Since we were actually there, we have a better idea of which way Megatron flew off in..." Thundercracker explained.  
  
"And you wouldn't have much luck following his energy, seeing as how he wasn't really expending any..." Skywarp continued.  
  
"We're gonna show you the way."   
  
Soundwave finally found his voice. "NO!" he managed. "No. Absolutely not. You two are going back to the sick bay..."  
  
"Soundwave! We're fine! Sheesh, don't you think we're built better than that?" Thundercracker sounded mildly insulted. "We just needed a few parts replaced, that's all."  
  
"Besides," Skywarp added. "The alternatives are staying here and listening to the Insecticons complain or trying to chase after Starscream's *ahem* army."  
  
"Well, when you put it that way..." Soundwave smiled behind his facemask. "All right, but take it easy, both of you. We probably won't have occasion to fight, but if we do, stay out of it."  
  
"Somehow, I don't think the Autobots are THAT interested in stalking us." Thundercracker rolled his optics.  
  
"Alright, hurry up everyone!" Skywarp started for the ship. "At the rate he was going, he'll be flying forever. We'd better catch up."  
  
"Sure, unless there was a nicely placed planet in his flight path." Thundercracker said, half-joking.  
  
The Decepticons boarded the ship and set off for the site of the their last encounter with the large orange planet/monster.  
  
***  
  
While the few loyal Decepticons set out in search of their leader, Starscream and his legion of new recruits descended on the battered Metroplex.  
  
There was still a general air of happiness among the yet unsuspecting Autobots as they finished loading the shuttle. Even Optimus and Hot Rod had taken a break from being depressed. Swoop was still moping around and insisting that fighting would never be the same, but even that failed to dampen his comrades' spirits.  
  
There had actually been two space shuttles left semi-functional after the slaughter of the previous day, but neither of them had exactly been in perfect shape. Of course, they would both fly, but it made more sense to just take some of the supplies or parts or whatever was necessary out of one and use those to repair the other. And that was exactly what they were doing.  
  
Arcee, Blurr, Springer, and Kup were working inside the larger ship (the one they all planned to use) when the Decepticons struck. Kup had managed to get the radar on the ship working a few minutes before, so perhaps if they had had that on, things would have worked out differently. As it was, though, attack was the last thing from the Autobots' minds (after all, they had seen the Decepticons retreat before, hadn't they?) and the sound of blowtorches and welding guns drowned out, as far as their ears were concerned, any noise made when Starscream's band entered Earth's atmosphere.  
  
On the smaller ship, the one further down in the docking bay, Optimus and Blaster were trying to disconnect the ship's radio without damaging anything TOO vital. It wasn't going very well.  
  
"Heyheyhey!!" Blaster screamed at his leader. "Don't touch that! Don't touch that! Don't even look at that!"  
  
Optimus stepped backwards in fear, not even totally sure what 'that' was. "Blaster, you said to disconnect the…"  
  
"That doesn't mean you can touch that! You don't need to touch that to do that!"  
  
Optimus shook his head, thoroughly confused.  
  
"Why do we even NEED the radio, anyway?" Hot Rod piped up from below the deck. "We're all going to be on the same ship, aren't we? Who would we need to radio?"  
  
"We need it to contact Cybertron, Hot Rod." Optimus called back. "It may be that our forces there have not been completely wiped out, and if that is the case, we will need to communicate with them."  
  
After a long pause, Hot Rod responded with a sheepish "…….oh."  
  
"Me Swoop think radio is ugly!" Swoop squawked from the corner.  
  
"You Swoop is just trying to be difficult." Optimus groaned.  
  
Blaster, however, did not react so calmly. "WHAT DID YOU SAY!?! I'll have you know that this baby is a state-of -the-art…" he then descended into a tirade of techno gibberish that would have brought Bill Gates to his knees.  
  
Optimus looked at the ranting Blaster. Then he looked up at the half-dismantled radio. 'Should I try to do this by myself?' he thought. 'Better not. I might touch whatever 'that' was again.'  
  
That decided, he went below deck to where Hot Rod was trying (rather unsuccessfully) to haul several power cels out from under a large broken piece of piping.  
  
"Need some help?"  
  
"No…..I…got…it…." Hot Rod grunted.  
  
"Don't strain yourself." Optimus warned.  
  
"I'm…fiiiiiiiEEEEEEE!!!!!!" the cord Hot Rod had been pulling on snapped and sent the young Autobot careening backwards into Optimus' midsection.  
  
"Aaaugh!" Optimus screamed in pain as the half-healed laceration Megatron had put there was traumatized again.  
  
"Oh!" Hot Rod scrambled to his feet. "Are you okay?! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to…"  
  
"It-It's okay, Hot Rod." Optimus managed. "I'm all right. Did you hurt yourself?"  
  
But before Hot Rod could answer, something jarred the whole ship and knocked them both flat.  
  
"What in the universe was that?!" Hot Rod yelped as he attempted to scramble to his feet.  
  
"I...I..." Optimus stammered, alternately trying to think and trying to ignore the pain from now open scars.   
  
Another shockwave rattled the hull of the ship and both Autobots could hear the sound of lasers outside. This time, Optimus found himself able to completely ignore the pain in his side.  
  
"Hot Rod, stay here!" Optimus yelled over his shoulder as he jumped up and ran out onto the deck. His warning to Hot Rod had been pure reflex; he knew perfectly well the younger Bot was going to follow him. And there was really no point in pressing the issue. Hot Rod never had the sense God gave a table lamp.  
  
From the deck, Optimus could see the entire docking bay. His efficient, unemotional processor noted three things: one, the Decepticons were attacking them. Two, Blaster, Swoop, Springer, Arcee and Blurr were already outside trying to fight. Three, the Decepticons had cleverly placed themselves right in between the two ships, making it impossible even for Swoop and Blaster to get to the other ship.  
  
The more emotional part of his system panicked. There were exactly eight Autobots. And clearly several dozen Decepticons at LEAST. In the immortal words of Huffer: THEY WERE DOOMED!!!!!  
  
Optimus charged out of the ship, Hot Rod right behind him.  
  
"Where's our guns?!" Hot Rod shouted over the screaming missiles.  
  
"GET BACK IN THE SHIP!!!!" Optimus screamed futily.  
  
Hot Rod picked a ship and started firing on it, using the small cannon attached to his arm. It did little more than dent the hull of his target. Vaguely, he heard Optimus screaming at him to go back inside. But how could he do that? There weren't enough troops as it was. He narrowly dodged a laser through the head, but kept fighting nonetheless.  
  
Optimus could have screamed just in sheer frustration. That kid was going to get himself and everyone around him KILLED! But he couldn't worry about that for the moment.   
  
"SPRINGER!" He shouted over the chaos. "Get back in the ship! We can't fight them! Get in the ship and GO!"   
  
"But what about you?!" The green helicopter shouted back.  
  
"Don't worry! We'll be fine! Just GO! That's an ORDER!"  
  
"Y-yessir..." Springer said, but not loud enough for Optimus to hear. "Arcee, Blurr! Come on!! Retreat!"  
  
***  
  
"Hahahahahaaaa!!!" Starscream shrieked in that annoying high pitched laugh of his. "This is wonderful! Like shooting fish in a barrel!" There were less than a dozen Autobots down there! This was the easiest mission he had ever carried out! In a way, he would have liked it to be more difficult, if only to make his victory more glorious. But that was no matter. Half of these weaklings he was fighting with had never seen combat before in their lives and couldn't tell the difference between a gloriously won war and a card game. So he'd just tell them it was much harder than it actually was and who was there to call him on it?  
  
All in all, he was having a good time. The very few Autobots left were horrible shots and...wait...could it be..?  
  
"Optimus Prime?!" Starscream said aloud to no one in particular. "It can't be! I saw him fall!" Then the deja vu sensation hit him. Optimus never died when you thought he did. Gods, what was that bot made of?!  
  
The new Decepticon commander swooped in for a closer look. Well, well. Maybe Optimus wasn't built so well after all! The Autobot looked like hell on wheels. Dented, scarred, and obviously nowhere near recovered from his brawl with Megatron.  
  
Starscream smiled to himself. This fight could turn out to bring real glory to him after all!  
  
***  
  
"RETREAT!!!" Optimus shouted for what seemed like the hundredth time. "Blaster! Swoop! GET IN THE SHUTTLE!!"  
  
Well, at least he could see Springer and the others retreating into their ship. If only he and the ones around him could get there! Sure, the shuttle could have flown easily...BEFORE the Autobots had transferred half its parts to the other ship! Once again, he had failed to plan for every possible scenario, failed to foresee the obvious. Of COURSE the Decepticons would attack again!   
  
A laser blast whizzing past his face reminded him that he would have to mentally beat himself up later. Luckily, Blaster and Swoop were already halfway up the ramp into the shuttle. Hot Rod, on the other hand...  
  
"Damn it, Hot Rod!!!!" Optimus cried in an uncharacteristic burst of pure rage. He lunged forward, grabbed the younger Autobot's arm, pushed it down where it could do no further damage and began to escort the screaming teenager to the ship.  
  
Suddenly, a sharp pain in his leg sent him and Hot Rod both sprawling. Unable to get up, Optimus jerked his neck around to look above him.  
  
Up until now, all the Decepticons he had seen had been basically new recruits. Many of the 'old' Decepticons had been badly injured the other day, so that was not surprising. Unfortunately, the Decepticon swooping down on him was all too familiar.  
  
"Starscream!" he hissed in dismay.  
  
"Ahahahaha!!!" The jet cackled. "I will annihilate you, Optimus Prime!!!"  
  
'Oh, ye gods, why me?' Optimus moaned inwardly. He tried to shield Hot Rod from Starscream's onslaught, but he found himself completely unable to move his left leg. And that was going to be a problem, since the shuttle was still about a hundred yards away.   
  
"Hot Rod!" Optimus yelled with all the strength he could muster. "Go! Get on the shuttle and tell Blaster to take off!"  
  
"I'm not leaving you!" Hot Rod cried even as laser shots rained around them.  
  
"Didn't anyone ever teach you how to take an order?!" his leader groaned.  
  
"I was sick that day." Hot Rod smiled grimly. "Come on." He slipped an arm around Optimus' waist and began to drag the larger Autobot towards the shuttle.  
  
"You will DIE! You will die slowly and painfully at the hand of Starscream the Mighty!!!" The shrill voice echoed above them.  
  
"Don't you ever SHUT UP?!" Hot Rod shouted.  
  
But this was not going well. There was no way Hot Rod could drag the weakening Optimus all the way to the ship and survive, no matter how bad Starscream's aim was. But just then, a miracle happened.  
  
Actually, what happened was that Springer and the other group had gotten their ship started, booted up the weapons systems, and immediately had begun firing on the Decepticons. Specifically, on Starscream. Hey, the guy was a good target.  
  
But when you have a hysterical, homicidal Decepticon about to slaughter you and your injured friend with badly aimed but certainly abundant laser blasts, suddenly having him shot out of the sky sure as hell seems like a miracle.  
  
Hot Rod hauled his leader up the ramp of the ship (with some help from Blaster as soon as they were close enough), deposited Optimus on a fairly comfortable looking box, and bolted to the co-pilot's seat. Normally, Blaster would have been co-pilot, with Optimus in charge. But, well, Optimus was unconscious.  
  
"How do I do this?!" Hot Rod screamed hysterically. To many buttons, too many blinking lights, too many confusing little thingys!  
  
"Oh, just don't touch anything!" Blaster shouted at him, starting up the booster rockets. "I just hope this piece of junk'll still fly."  
  
"But what if it doesn't?"  
  
"Then we are royally screwed." the communicator said calmly.  
  
But it did fly. Or at least, it took off. Sure, the other ship had taken off several minutes ago and was now quite far away, but things were relatively okay. Or as okay as things can be when you've got two dozen enemy warships on your tail, you're flying in a busted up wreck that probably would have been fine except for the fact that you took it half apart this afternoon, and the guy who really knows how to fly the damn thing is out cold.  
  
"Forget what I said." Blaster commented as the Decepticons began to close in on them. "We're royally screwed no matter what!!"  
  
"Call the other ship!" Hot Rod suggested brilliantly. "Tell them to come help us!"  
  
"Well, honeypeaches, that would be just fine except that....THE GODDAMN RADIO IS HALF DISASSEMBLED!!!!!!"  
Blaster screamed. "And I don't have time to transform because you don't know how to fly this thing and besides, we're only going to be on ONE SHIP, so what do we need a radio for, RIGHT?!"  
  
Hot Rod tried to make himself very very small.  
  
The next twenty minutes passed in a series of narrow misses, hysterical screaming/ranting, and a whole lot of being thrown around. Nothing seemed to wake Optimus up, though.  
  
"Where are we?!" Hot Rod yelled, the first coherent scream.  
  
"Like I know! We took the mapping device out and put it in the OTHER ship!!" Blaster screamed. He didn't deal with pressure very well.  
  
Hot Rod was about to respond when...  
  
*SLAM*  
  
A huge hole suddenly appeared in the back of the ship.  
  
"AAAAUGH!!" Blaster screamed. "They can't hit us! They never hit us! They're terrible shots!"  
  
"Well it looks like they've been practicing!!" Hot Rod screeched in a voice he didn't recognize.  
  
The small shuttle spiraled in space for a few minutes before being caught in an atmosphere and hurled to the surface of a small planet.  
  
***  
  
"Optimus!" Blurr shouted as he watched the other ship spiral downwards.  
  
"I don't believe it. I understood him." Arcee commented dryly.   
  
"Oh my stars..." Springer muttered. "They'll kill us all!"  
  
"Not if this is the model I think it is!" Kup crowed triumphantly from the hull.  
  
"What are you yelling about?!" Springer shouted. "Get up here and take the second weapons station!"  
  
"No, no!" the old Autobot called back. "I've got an idea! We may get out of this after all!"  
  
***  
  
Starscream fired his ship's guns again, eyes wild. He had shot down Optimus Prime's ship! And now he was going to eliminate the last of the Autobots and become supreme ruler of the universe! Who needed Megatron?!  
  
The battle computer locked on its target. With a squeal/shriek/scream of victory, Starscream fired the cannons.  
  
And watched with glee as the orange ship before him was blown to atoms.  
  
"I DID IT!! I DID IT!!! I HAVE DESTROYED THE AUTOBOTS!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!"  
  
to be continued.... 


	3. Chapter 3

"So explain this to me again." Soundwave turned to Thudercracker after setting the course and putting the ship in auto-pilot. "You were floating in space and suddenly a giant planet showed up?"  
  
"Yep." the Seeker shrugged. "I didn't even notice it 'till it was almost on top of us, but it was huge. Maybe twice the size of Cybertron."  
  
"Something twice the size of Cybertron snuck up on you?!" Soundwave shook his head in disbelief. "Wait, do you mean it had a cloaking device?"  
  
"I dunno. I don't think it was a ship or anything. I mean, when it spoke it said "I am Unicron." You know, singular first-person. And if it did have a cloaking device, it would have activated it once it was done with Megatron. But it didn't; it just floated away."  
  
Soundwave shook his head again, this time in contemplation. "What did it offer Megatron? A new army?"  
  
"Yeah. Like I told you before, it said he could have a new body and a new army if he destroyed the Autobots." Thundercracker assented.  
  
"Sounds a bit too simple."  
  
"Tell me about it. When I first heard it, though, I thought Megatron was gonna go for it. I mean, he'd get all this free stuff for just doing what he always does. But then the big planet made it sound like he was going to make Megatron his slave. Megs didn't like that too much." the jet smirked.  
  
Soundwave smiled as well. That certainly sounded like Megatron. "Did it give any other stipulations? Any explanation?"  
  
"Nope. Just showed up, made his offer, blasted Megs, and left." the other summarized.  
  
"Well." Soundwave sat back in the pilot's seat. "That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever."  
  
"Nope." Thundercracker agreed.  
  
"Why would a huge planetoid care about what happens in a civil war on a planet half its size? And why would it be willing to expend the energy and who knows what else needed to give Megatron new troops just to keep that war going?" the communicator said more to himself than to Thundercracker.  
  
"Well..." Thundercracker realized Soundwave was thinking aloud, but he decided to respond anyway. "If he wanted to keep the war going, it does actually make sense that he would repair Megs and give him new troops. After all, without Megatron, who's in charge? Starscream. And everybody knows he couldn't lead a parade. The Autobots would win and they would promote eternal peace like the hippies they are."  
  
"True." Soundwave nodded. "But that's not what confuses me. Why would this thing CARE? We've never seen it before, we can assume it's never seen us before, so how could it even know we were fighting in the first place? And even if it did, what effect could our war possibly have on it?"  
  
"Maybe it just doesn't like Autobots." Thundercracker shrugged.  
  
Soundwave sighed. "I don't like this at all."  
  
***  
  
Megatron slept through the sonic boom. After living so many years near a space port, the noise just didn't register in his auditory circuits like it used to. No, what woke him up was Wheelie's scream.  
  
"Huh? What?! What's going on?" Megatron jumped up and instinctively reached for his gun. Which was, incidentally, still on Cybertron.  
  
"B-Big sound! Shaking ground!" Wheelie managed, cowering behind the Decepticon.  
  
"What?! Oh, look. A ship." In the distance he could see a small shuttle descending below the tree line. "It's all right, Wheelie. That's just the noise spacecrafts make when they enter a planet's atmosphere." he patted the little robot's head comfortingly. "It's not going to hurt you. I guess you don't get many visitors to this rock, huh?"  
  
Then it occurred to him. A ship meant a spaceport. And a spaceport meant a city. At last! He had spent the last two days wandering around this metallic jungle with Wheelie and he was sick of it! Finally, civilization!  
  
"Come on, Wheelie!" Megatron grinned. "Let's go see where that ship lands!"  
  
"Don't wanna go there! Wheelie scared!" the child protested.  
  
'Amazing, that wasn't QUITE a rhyme.' Megatron thought. Out loud, he said, " Oh, come, Wheelie. If wild Sharkticons and who-knows-what-else's lurking around every bush out here don't scare you, how can you be afraid of a simple spaceship?"  
  
Wheelie just shook his head resolutely.  
  
Megatron sighed. "Look, you'll be alright. I won't let the big bad spaceship hurt you. We won't even get near it, okay? We'll just follow it and see where it landed."  
  
This seemed to console Wheelie a bit and he eventually agreed. So they set out on what felt like the happiest walk of Megatron's life. This couldn't be better. Once they got to the city, he could see about getting a ship and then getting back to Cybertron so he could find out just how long it would take to undo the damage Starscream had undoubtedly already done.  
  
A few feet ahead of him, Wheelie jumped up on a fallen tree trunk and began balance-beam walking across it. At the end of the trunk, he jumped into a pile of underbrush, giggling insanely.  
  
Megatron chuckled at the spectacle. But that brought him to another consideration. Before he left for Cybertron- no, before he even got that ship- he had to find someone to look after Wheelie. The little kid had great survival instincts; Megatron had found out from several silly rhyming statements that Wheelie had been living out here for as long as he could remember. But nonetheless, one did not just leave a small child out in the wilderness. No, there would be some sort of refuge or government institution that could find Wheelie a home. Maybe Megatron could even come back here some time and check on the little boy...  
  
As he found himself doing more and more often lately, Megatron snapped himself out his thoughts abruptly. He was the leader of an army, and that army was in the middle of a war! He should be more concerned about how to get back than how to find some orphan kid a home! But still... He mentally slapped himself. He was getting way to attached to this rhyming little piece of orange fluff.  
  
***  
*SPLASH*  
  
What was left of the second Autobot ship filled with water at an alarming rate. Hot Rod floundered near the ceiling as long as he could before he realized that he wouldn't drown on the grounds that he didn't need to breathe. He ducked down into the murk and caught a glance out one of the windows. Then he realized why the ship had filled so fast.  
  
It was still moving.  
  
The water wasn't doing enough to reduce the speed of the ship! At this rate they were going to crash a second time into the...  
  
*CRASH*  
  
...ocean floor.  
  
The ship smashed into an outcropping of rock and burst into several dozen pieces. Hot Rod went flying at least a hundred yards, at which point he was stopped by what seemed like a metallic reed. He lay there for a few moments, just collecting his wits.  
  
Luckily, he wasn't damaged at all. A few scratches maybe, but that was all. He staggered to his feet, unable to see two feet in front of him thanks to the cloud of dust an oil the crashing ship had created. He moved forward anyway. The rapidity of the crash hadn't left him time to see what had happened to his comrades.  
  
"Blaster! Swoop! Optimus! Anybody!" he screamed at the top of his voice. Hearing no response, he hurried into the clouds once more. It was hard staying on the ground, seeing as how he was at the bottom of an ocean, but he never was a very good swimmer. Thankfully, Transformers weren't so naturally disposed towards floating as, say, a human.  
  
Suddenly, one of his feet caught on something and he went toppling forward. The clash of metal against metal surprised him and he quickly scrambled off what he had fallen onto.  
  
"Optimus!" he cried in shock. The Autobot leader hadn't SLEPT through all that?!  
  
"ugh...." Optimus moaned, tiny air bubbles emanating from behind his facemask.  
  
"Hang on, Optimus! I'll get you out of here! You'll be okay!" Hot Rod gathered up his barely coherent commander and began kicking them to the surface.  
  
***  
  
"KUP!!!!" Springer screamed as the shuttle careened out of control through space in no discernible direction. "What the HELL did you DO?!"  
  
"Saved us all, my boy!" the old Autobot's disembodied laughter rang from the back of the bridge.  
  
"SAVED us?!" Arcee screamed, snatching a chair to keep from flying into the wall. "They just detonated three-quarters of the ship!!"  
  
"Would you rather they had detonated FOUR quarters?!" Kup yelled back.  
  
The sonic boom and onslaught of heat in the ship as it entered the atmosphere of an unknown planet rendered further conversation impossible.  
  
***  
Hot Rod dragged the half comatose Optimus up out of the surf. He collapsed next to his leader in exhaustion. Once he got up the energy to turn his head and look around, he realized they were on a deserted beach that grew into a metallic jungle a few yards off. And there was no sight of either Blaster or Swoop. They had most likely been thrown from the crash as Hot Rod had. Well, he would have to find them later. For now...  
  
"Optimus?" he leaned over the older Autobot, concerned.  
  
Optimus moaned again. "Hot Rod...what...happened?" he managed. The last thing he remembered was Starscream barreling down on them in Autobot City...  
  
"We...crashed." Hot Rod could think of no other words. "I don't know where we are."  
  
"Blaster and Swoop?"  
  
"I didn't see them. I mean after the crash. They made it onto the shuttle."  
  
Optimus struggled to get up. "We have to find them...contact the others...."  
  
"Wait!" his companion protested, trying to hold him down. "You need to rest, you've taken about fifty major falls today!"  
  
"I...only count two." Optimus pushed the fussing teenager away. "And I'm fine. For now we have to find the others and then find civilization."  
  
"Oh, okay..." Hot Rod sighed resignedly. He knew he couldn't force Optimus down. Suddenly, his ears perked up. "what was that?"  
  
I didn't hear any-" Optimus cut himself off as the sound of twigs snapping in the nearby forest became more audible.  
  
Hot Rod reached for his gun.  
  
"No!" Optimus snapped in a hushed tone. "Just wait. Get down and lie still." Reluctantly, the younger warrior obeyed.  
  
***  
  
Megatron was beginning to feel slightly sick. They were closing in on where the ship came down, if his mental calculations were correct. But he saw no buildings, no sign of life. Just a long stream of gray smoke descending from the heavens.  
  
For a few moments he deluded himself that there might still be a city nearby. But when he and Wheelie stepped out of the trees into an empty beach, even the most optimistic part of his logic functions had to admit there was no hope. The smoke he had noticed earlier seemed to complete it's spiraling course at a spot in the water about a league out. The water itself had obviously not yet recovered from the impact. The ship he had heard had crashed. Perfect.  
  
"This just the sea. HERE nothing be." Wheelie's childish voice interrupted Megatron's thoughts.  
  
"No kidding..." the sometime Decepticon leader moaned.  
  
"STOP RIGHT THERE MEGATRON!!!!!"  
  
"AUGH!!!" Megatron screamed and toppled over in shock.  
  
"Hot Rod!" a familiar voice shouted  
  
But the bright red Autobot would not be pulled down. He stood with his arm cannon pointed at the Decepticon, pure hatred in his eyes.  
  
As for the object of his aggression, Megatron was unable to even pick himself up from the sand. His brain could barely register what he was seeing. Optimus Prime and that little upstart who had tried to interfere with their battle? Here? A million light years from anything? Wheelie, terrified by the scene, scrambled behind some nearby rocks. In the back of his mind, Megatron was glad. Better if the kid stayed out of the way. But as for the rest of this situation...  
  
"What-what in the..." he stammered.  
  
"I'm gonna finish what Prime started on Earth!" Hot Rod cried angrily.  
  
"HOT ROD!!!" Optimus had managed to get to his feet and now grabbed Hot Rod's arm and forced his gun down. Or rather, tried to force the gun and let Hot Rod's shock do the rest.  
  
"O-Optimus!!!" Hot Rod stammered in confusion, allowing himself to be overpowered.   
  
"Hot Rod, that's ENOUGH!" Optimus snapped. It was all he could say. He himself wasn't all that sure why he was doing this; there was no possible way to explain it to Hot Rod. Megatron was alone and unarmed; he certainly hadn't been lying in wait for them...and considering the fact that the Decepticon was still collapsed in the sand, it just didn't seem right to shoot him in cold blood.  
  
Megatron recovered his wits and scrambled to his feet. Wait a minute. Was Optimus actually protecting him? Ye gods, did the great hypocrite never stop?!  
  
/We'll just see about this!/ Megatron thought.  
  
"Come on, Optimus!" He yelled to the two Autobots, throwing his arms out to his sides. "Shoot me! There aren't any hidden blasters here, I assure you! Why don't you kill me?!"  
  
"Optimus!" Hot Rod appealed to his leader. "Let me kill him! He deserves to die, dammit! It's because of him all our friends are gone, right?!" he pleaded desperately.  
  
Optimus felt his resolve falter. Yes, this whole war was Megatron's fault. But he just...couldn't...  
  
"NO ONE deserves to die, Hot Rod." He said simply and firmly.  
  
"Oh, give me a break!" Megatron crowed, in a taunting tone worthy of Starscream. "You didn't think so back on Earth, did you?! Come on, you hypocrite! Take your revenge! There's no one here but you me and that kid. He'd keep his mouth shut. Wouldn't you?" he asked Hot Rod. Without waiting for a reply, he continued. "Go ahead, Optimus! Just shoot me right here! No one has to know! Your image won't be soiled, oh perfect magnanimous leader!"  
  
Optimus clenched his fists in bottled up rage. He would have liked to have blasted Megatron right then and there. But he knew better than to play into the Decepticon's hands. If he shot Megatron now, who would be the real victor? Megatron. Optimus would do nothing but prove him right if he lashed out now. It was a double edged sword, really. If he made peace, he was a weakling. If he tried to kill Megatron, he was every bit the hypocrite the white Decepticon accused him of being.  
  
Optimus stepped in front of Hot Rod. "I won't kill you, Megatron. The war is over. And your side has won, though you are not there to see it."  
  
"Prime!" Hot Rod gasped.  
  
"There is no need for us to continue fighting. I have no personal feud with you-"  
  
"You DON'T?" Megatron exclaimed in disbelief. "Then what the hell did you chase me here for?"  
  
"What?" Optimus looked confused. "Chase you? We weren't chasing you."  
  
"Then what in the name of Cosmos are you doing here, sightseeing?! Although I would suggest you replace the auto-landing devices in your ships if they're all the same make as that one." he indicated the still smoking ocean.  
  
"We weren't after you, you arrogant bastard!" Hot Rod piped up from behind Optimus. "We were trying to get away from Starscream and the rest of your old cronies! Who seem to have completely given up on you, by the way."  
  
Megatron flinched slightly, but quickly regained his composure. "Starscream actually shot your ship down? I'm astounded." he said dryly.  
  
"Megatron, I have no wish to fight with you." Optimus ignored the deviation from their former topic and continued. "All I want is to find my comrades and find the nearest city."  
  
Megatron laughed. "Good luck! I've been wandering around this rock for two days and if there IS a city here, it's either the smallest or the best concealed in the universe!"  
  
"Are you saying this place in uninhabited?!"   
  
"Well, not completely..." Megatron glanced at the small form of Wheelie peeking out from behind a rock. The small bot realized he had been noticed and darted out from behind the rock and to a new refuge under Megatron's legs.  
  
"It's alright, Wheelie." Megatron told him. "They won't hurt you."  
  
Optimus stared in disbelief. "Who...is that?"  
  
"Hm? Oh, this is Wheelie. The only occupant this planet has, as far as I've been able to make out." Megatron explained absently. "He's pretty handy. Fixed me up after I crashed here."  
  
"Wow." Hot Rod was impressed. Imagine such a small kid being able to fix a Transformer....  
  
"You crashed here too?" Optimus asked, becoming more and more confused by the whole situation.  
  
"No, Prime, I parachute down here every year for a vacation!" Megatron's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Of course I crashed here you idiot!"  
  
"HOW?!" Optimus demanded. "Every other Decepticon made it back to Cybertron! Heck, they made it back to EARTH! What did you do, fall out of Astrotrain?!"  
  
Megatron laughed out loud. "As a matter of fact, Prime...."  
  
Megatron gave a slightly abridged version of his eviction from the ship and in return Optimus gave an even more abridged version of how he and Hot Rod had come to be on this planet. Incidentally, both left out the parts of their stories that involved beings named Unicron and moon-eating monster planets. Hot Rod, for his part, just stood in the background and didn't even bother trying to figure out why the two arch-enemies were swapping stories so amicably.  
  
Once both had finished their tales, Optimus stepped forward. "I have a proposal."  
  
"I'm listening."  
  
"I propose you and I declare a temporary truce. We cooperate until we get off this planet."  
  
Megatron considered for a moment. "But suppose we never get off this planet."  
  
"Then it won't matter if we fight or not because it will make no difference to Cybertron. And since the only thing to be gained from fighting each other here, isolated, would be our own wounds..."  
  
"Hm. I see your point." he extended his hand. "Agreed."  
  
The Autobot leader took it, almost expecting a trick. When there was none, he stepped back and nodded.  
  
"Wonderful. Just wonderful." Hot Rod grumbled. "We're now allies with the guy who wanted to kill us forty-eight hours ago, our friends are missing, and that planet thing has probably taken out both moons if not Cybertron itself..."  
  
"What?!" Megatron's attention instantly snapped to Hot Rod.  
  
/You stupid kid!/ Optimus thought. For all they knew, the thing that had destroyed Cybertron's moons was allied with the Decepticons!  
  
"Did you say 'planet thing'?" Megatron demanded.  
  
"Um...I-uh...." Hot Rod stammered, realizing he had made a grave tactical error. "Um...well-I don't really-"  
  
"Did it call itself Unicron?"  
  
"What?" Optimus' optics widened in only partial surprise. "You know what that thing is?"  
  
"All I know is it calls itself Unicron and it wanted me to destroy you."  
  
"WHAT?!"  
  
It seemed the proper time for the full and complete versions of the two commanders' stories.  
  
Once they were both done, Optimus collapsed into a sitting position on a nearby rock. Megatron felt like doing the same, but was more secure on his feet.  
  
"What is going on here?" Optimus asked no one in particular. "This thing ate Cybertron's moons because you refused to become its slave?"  
  
Megatron began pacing back and forth. "I don't know. Maybe it intended to eat the moons from the get-go. But we have to get out of here."  
  
"I thought that was a given..."  
  
"I mean NOW, Prime!" he snapped. "This thing is immensely powerful! If it could destroy the moons it could do the same to Cybertron! We have to get out of here and stop it! Starscream can't be relied on for ANYthing! And your forces are scrapped. Ye gods! Maybe Soundwave...no, no, he'd never get involved in a power struggle...but maybe in an emergency..."  
  
Optimus began to realize the comments were no longer directed at him. Megatron continued to pace and talk to himself. But despite his odd behavior, the Autobot leader was truly amazed.  
  
"You really care, don't you?"  
  
Megatron stopped pacing. "What?"  
  
"About Cybertron. You really care. It's not just about having power now, is it? The planet's in danger and you just want to protect it." He said it as if it were the most incredible thing in the world. And to him, it was.  
  
"Stars, Prime, what have we been fighting about all these years?! Of course I care!" Megatron snapped. "But we don't have time for this! Come on!" he spun on his heel and headed down the beach.  
  
"Where are you going?!" Optimus yelled, standing up.  
  
"Any civilization will be on the water!" Megatron called over his shoulder. "Are you coming or not?!"  
  
Hot Rod and Optimus exchanged a baffled look, shrugged, and followed the Decepticon. Optimus was still reeling from the revelation that you can fight someone for over a hundred years and never really know anything about them.  
  
***  
Springer forced his aching joints to move. He shoved a crumpled peice of metal off his midsection and struggled into a sitting position. His bleary eyes took in the scene in the bridge. After the run in with the Decepticons, the place had been less than neat and orderly. But now it was in downright shambles. The front 'windshield' was caved in and glass splinters covered the floor. Bits of the ship's steel walls lay in several states of mutilation around the bridge and on top of the unmoving bodies of his comrades.  
  
"Say...something..." he stammered. "Anybody!"  
  
Acee's arm twitched and she moaned as she raised herself to her hands and knees. "Remind me to give the auto-pilot a raise..." she said dryly. Springer sighed in relief as Blurr also wiggled out from under the rubble and said something indecipherable that generally implied that he was okay.  
  
"Sheesh...what did Kup do, anyway?" Springer wondered, pulling himself to his unsteady feet.  
  
Arcee leaned on the remains of a cockpit chair for support. "I-I think he used the emergency separation function. It splits the bridge from the rest of the ship."  
  
Springer nodded, slowly understanding. "So the Deceps blew up the back of the ship and thought they destroyed us...."  
  
"...sotheystoppedchasingus!!!!!!" Blurr blurted out, desperate to have a part in the conversation.  
  
"Um....right."  
  
"But a lot of good it does us." Arcee sighed. "How are we supposed to get anywhere in this wreck? Does this look like an inhabited planet to you?"  
  
"Well, no...." Springer admitted. "But don't be such a pessimist. Look at all that scrap out there." he pointed out a large hole in that shattered windshield. Sure enough, the planet looked like it had been the garbage dump for an entire solar system. What environment of landscape there might have been was completely covered by massive amounts of scrap metal, enormous bolts, and other assorted junk. "We should be able to find what we need to fix up the ship." Springer continued hopefully.  
  
"Alright..." Arcee said, still feeling a bit skeptical. "But in any case, at least we're alive. I guess we have Kup to thank for that after all."  
  
"Speaking of Kup..." Springer glanced around, noticing the lack of the old Autobot's presence for the first time. "Kup?" he called. He crossed to the back of the bridge with no small amount of difficulty. The mess was even worse in the hind of the ship. The hind of the ship, where no one should have been...unless they meant to throw a hidden switch that separated one quarter of the ship from the rest of it.  
  
"Kup?"  
  
Springer glanced around, the cold feeling in his chest getting even colder. "Kup?" he said shakily, taking one more step forward. That was when he caught a glimpse of teal metal out of the corner of his eye.  
  
"KUP!!!" he dropped to his knees and began to desperately toss crumpled steel off his friend. "Arcee, Blurr, help me!"  
  
But it became painfully obvious that they were too late. The best they could do was pull Kup's body out from under the rubble.  
  
Arcee sighed heavily. "I guess all his experience paid off after all..." she said quietly.  
  
"Yeah." Springer's voice was slightly choked. For once, Blurr said nothing.   
  
Arcee crossed to the other side of the bridge, sat down on what was left of a control seat, and put her head in her hands. They had lost another of their comrades. But, as horrible as it sounded, they had no time to grieve. Now there were only three of them, stranded on an uncharted planet in a ruined spaceship. What in the name of Cosmos were they going to DO?!  
  
"Arcee?" Springer's voice snapped her out of her thoughts. The green helicopter looked as overwhelmed and saddened as she felt. "Come on...let's go outside. I'm sure we can find somewhere to....you know..." he glanced at Kup's remains.  
  
Arcee shook her head. "I don't like the idea of leaving him in a junkyard, Springer..."  
  
Springer smiled sadly. "What better place? People probably come here all the time to fix things, get repairs.... Can you think of anything Kup would rather want his parts to be used for?"  
  
"I...guess not." Arcee sighed. "I suppose it's alright then....but that's not the only thing we have to think about right now."  
  
"Yeah. We still have to get out of here and back to Cybertron."  
  
The femme rubbed her temples fitfully. "Springer, open your eyes! We're stranded here, completely alone....Optimus and Hot Rod and the others were destroyed in the other ship....if we go back to Cybertron, what will we find? At best, a planet full of Decepticons. At worst, nothing at all. We can't just think in terms of what's going to happen an hour and a half from now anymore."  
  
"You think I don't know that?!" Springer snapped back. "But Cybertron is still my home; I don't care who thinks they're controlling it! We have to save it, even if there are only three of us left. Hey, it's happened before. A handful of people beating the odds..."  
  
"Yeah, it's happened. But more often, what's happened is the little guys are stomped flat in a matter of seconds." Arcee got up and strode out of the ship.  
  
Springer followed her as far as the doorway. "I know you don't mean that, Arcee!" he called after her. "You're not a coward! This isn't you!"  
  
Already several yards away from the ship, Arcee stopped. Springer was right. She didn't want to give up. But she didn't want to see anymore of her friends die in a hopeless cause either. It was for Cybertron, that much was true, but Cybertron belonged to the Decepticons now. Besides, who knew if there even was a Cybertron still? And what were they willing to risk to find out? Somewhere in the back of her mind, she remembered hearing someone say the purpose of having a life is to risk it. Maybe it was Optimus Prime. Maybe it was a Japanese kamikaze pilot.  
  
Maybe it didn't matter.  
  
She turned around and walked back to the ship.  



	4. Chapter 4

"We're lost."  
  
"We are not."  
  
"Yes we are."  
  
"No more than we've been this whole time."  
  
"Fine, we've been lost this whole time."  
  
"Then what's your point?"  
  
"Oh, forget it."  
  
Hot Rod watched the exchange between the two former commanders with fascination. By Primus, they were acting like old friends. Old friends sick of each other's company, yes, but old friends nonetheless. They had been walking along the endless beach for hours, and the silence had only been broken by momentary blurbs of conversation such as the previous one. Hot Rod was getting quite bored.  
  
"Hey, guys?" He finally spoke up. "Did it ever occur to anyone that maybe they DIDN'T build the cities on the water?"  
  
Optimus and Megatron both stopped, turned around, and stared at him.  
  
"Hot Rod, didn't you ever pay attention when they were teaching civilization?" Optimus asked. "Most major cities are built on the water."  
  
"Well, yeah, I know, but what if all the people live on the land? And so they built their cities on the land? And suppose they never even come beyond this jungle because their tribal mythology says the ocean is evil and should be avoided? What if we're going the complete wrong way?"  
  
Megatron stared at Hot Rod. Then he looked at Prime. "Where did you find this kid?"  
  
Optimus shook his head in partial response. "Come on, Hot Rod." he and Megatron continued down the beach.  
  
"We're going the wrong way!"  
  
"You fool, I say!" Wheelie chimed in, smirking at Hot Rod.  
  
"You tell 'im, Wheelie." Megatron chuckled.  
  
***  
Blaster woke up on the ocean floor. There was a metallic fish trying to eat his nose. But that wasn't what woke him up.  
  
What woke him up was the sound of slightly muffled squawking from above.   
  
'Swoop?' he wondered. Aching all over, he dragged himself into a sitting position and sent the annoying little mackerel attached to his face flying. What was going on? They had crashed....where were the others?!  
  
The loud bird cries from above told him he might know where one of them was. Well, even hanging out with a Dinobot was better than being alone. He swam to the surface.  
  
The sounds of squawking became louder and louder as he drew close. Finally, he surfaced and found himself directly below a midair battle. Swoop, in his dinosaur form was snapping at something that looked like...Laserbeak? What was Laserbeak doing here?  
  
Blaster never had time to think about it, as the Decepticon condor nearly took his head off diving beneath Swoop. Blaster treaded water for a few more seconds before he decided that perhaps this was not the best place for him. He quickly swam to the rocky shore.  
  
As soon as he got a firm footing, he turned back to the ocean. "Hey, Swoop!!! Hey, you stupid dino! What do you think you're doing?!"   
  
"Laserbeak!!!"  
  
Blaster nearly fell off his rock as a way-too-familiar voice resounded from the other side of a large boulder.   
  
"Laserbeak, get down here NOW!!"  
  
The red condor dodged a rather feeble blast from Swoop's beak, then reluctantly glided out of the line of fire. Blaster peeked over the edge of the rock and saw exactly what he had been hoping not to see: Laserbeak diving downwards and alighting on the arm of his master, Blaster's arch nemesis, the communications expert of the Decepticons....Soundwave.  
  
Luckily the indigo robot was too busy glaring at his cassette to notice Blaster's presence. Swoop apparently didn't notice Blaster either, but he did notice that Laserbeak was no longer attacking him. He dove headfirst towards the beach, attempting to slice both condor and communicator in two.  
  
Blaster was just making up his mind to call out to Swoop, even if it did mean attracting his rival's attention, when a rose colored laser blast shot a gaping hole through the dinobot's wing and sent him spiraling downwards.  
  
"Oh for the love of Primus...." Soundwave moaned. "Thundercracker, what part of 'we have to conserve energy' do you not understand?"  
  
"You oughta be thankin' me." the jet grumbled. "He was heading straight at ya!"  
  
"'Heading straight at me' give or take a few meters." Soundwave muttered. The idiot dinobot's trajectory would have sent him crashing into that pile of rocks some distance to Soundwave's left.  
  
"Besides, it was just one blast." Skywarp jumped to the defense of his fellow Seeker. "We're not THAT hard pressed for energy."  
  
Blaster crouched behind the rock, trying to decide whether or not to try to get to Swoop. The dinobot was only a few yards away, but it was a few yards out from the cover of the large rocks Blaster had been relying on. If Soundwave and the others noticed him...  
  
"...anyway, it's not like I destroyed him or anything. Just blasted a hole in his wing."  
  
"That's not what I'm talking about." Soundwave shook his head in frustration. "How are we supposed to find out why he's here if he can't speak?"  
  
"He can speak." Thundercracker insisted. "Why wouldn't he be able to speak? Here, I'll prove he can speak." he turned and strode towards Swoop's unmoving form.  
  
Blaster almost panicked when he saw Thundercracker begin to move towards his fallen comrade. But this time he wasn't going to run away while a friend was killed. After the incident in the tower with Perceptor....he was not going let that happen again!  
  
"STOP RIGHT THERE!!!" He jumped up, laser gun drawn. The gun was empty, but there was no reason Thundercracker had to know that.  
  
The four Decepticons jumped. They certainly hadn't been expecting any more surprise Autobots....and yet.  
  
Soundwave regained his composure quickly. "Ah. Blaster. A pleasure to see you. And what might you be doing here?"  
  
"I'm asking the questions now, radio boy!" Blaster screamed, still trying to scare his enemies.  
  
"It's not very wise to insult someone with a slur that could just as easily be applied to yourself." Soundwave said dryly. The two Seekers sniggered quietly.  
  
"Relax, radio boy number two." Skywarp smirked. "We didn't come here to plunder the planet's energy or anything, so you and your buddies can relax. How many of you are there anyway?"  
  
'Oh, just me and the guy you shot down a minute ago.' Blaster thought, again on the verge of panic. He said nothing.  
  
"I thought you were the one asking the questions, Blaster."   
  
"Sh-Shut up!" Blaster stammered.  
  
"Oh, will you calm down already?!" Thundercracker groaned. "We're not gonna kill you or your pet dinosaur. We just wanted to know what you guys were doing here."  
  
"Wh-what are YOU doing here?!" Blaster snapped, not at all calmed down.  
  
Soundwave sighed. "WE are looking for our commander. And quite frankly we aren't interested in fighting with you, so kindly just tell us what business you have here and then we will both go our separate ways."  
  
"I-if you don't want to fight me, why do you care why I'm here?" Blaster was getting a bit confused. It didn't look like the Decepticons had any intention of harming anybody, but he kept his gun pointed at Soundwave's head just to be safe.  
  
"Because we thought this planet was uninhabited. It wasn't even on the charts." Skywarp explained. "So we'd like to know if there's something here the Autobots are interested in so we can avoid it."  
  
"Avoid it?" Blaster echoed, disbelieving.  
  
"Yes, avoid it." Thundercracker snapped. "We just told ya we weren't lookin' for a fight!"  
  
Blaster stared quizzically at all three Decepticons (Laserbeak had retreated into Soundwave's chest hatch at this point). They really didn't want a fight?  
  
"You guys really don't want a fight?" he asked, wanting confirmation.  
  
"NO!" all three of them snapped in unison.  
  
"Oh....then why was Laserbeak fighting Swoop?!" he demanded angrily.  
  
"For your information, the dinobot attacked US." Soundwave glared.  
  
".......oh." Blaster lowered his gun. "Why are you guys here again? Looking for Megatron? What did he do, fall out of Astrotrain?"  
  
The three Decepticons looked at each other with rather pained expressions.  
  
"As a matter of fact that's exactly what he did....and he wasn't the only one." Skywarp groaned.  
  
"Well, we had a little help...." Thundercracker grumbled.  
  
"Um....okay....." Blaster was really confused now. "Is...that why you guys aren't with the other Deceps?"  
  
"You mean attacking earth?"  
  
"Yeah, but it went a little farther than that....."  
  
"Meaning...?"  
  
Blaster shrugged. "They shot us down. That's why we're here. It wasn't exactly our idea. You mean you weren't following us? You know, to see where we crashed and finish us off?"  
  
"Why would we waste our time doing that?" Thundercracker asked, a bit surprised.  
  
"Um...it just seems like the kind of thing you guys would normally do."  
  
"Uh-huh." Skywarp rolled his optics.  
  
"Okay, guess not...." Blaster said quietly. "But what makes you think Megatron is here?"  
  
"Well, this is where his energy trail ends, and we figured he didn't go through the planet." Soundwave told him. "So we're looking for him."  
  
"Okay.....why?"  
  
"Why? What do you mean, why?"  
  
"Well, why would you even care?" Blaster asked incredulously. "I'd have thought you'd be more worried about getting the whole leadership thing for yourselves instead of getting Megs back."  
  
A short period of very tense silence ensued.  
  
"You don't know as much about us as you think, Blaster." Soundwave said icily.  
  
"I.....guess not." the younger communicator was getting increasingly uncomfortable with this whole situation. He didn't trust these guys on a good day, and this did not appear to be a good day. Not for him at any rate. But wait a minute.  
  
"Hey, how did you guys follow Megs' energy trail here if you fell out of Astrotrain?"  
  
Skywarp snorted. "Well we got another ship first!"  
  
"So....you have a ship?"  
  
"Of course we have a ship! What kind of idiots would we be if we came here without a ship?"  
  
"And it's totally functional?"  
  
Thundercracker and Skywarp both guffawed. "No, we brought a broken ship! Of course it's functional you dolt!"  
  
"Hold on." Soundwave attempted to silence his amused comrades. "I think I see where this is going. You want a ride back to Cybertron." it wasn't a question, it was a statement of fact.  
  
"Um, well, yeah." Blaster admitted.  
  
"And why should we do that?"  
  
Blaster was saved from answering that immediately by the sound of muffled squawks emanating from the ground at his feet.  
  
"Swoop?" Blaster knelt down next to his friend. "Take it easy, buddy. Can you transform?"  
  
Swoop moaned incoherently, then caught sight of Thundercracker. He thrashed in the sand trying to bite the Decepticon's feet, but succeeding only in damaging his broken wing further.  
  
"Swoop! Swoop, stop that!" Blaster frantically tried to hold the Dinobot in one place. "They aren't going to hurt us! Relax!"  
  
The mechanical pterodactyl continued to flap his good wing and snap his jaws ineffectively until finally he lost all energy and slumped onto the ground.  
  
"Swoop!" Blaster groaned. "You don't have to fight them. Now try to transform. There's no way you can move in that form."  
  
The fallen dinobot groaned, but for once in his life decided to do as he was told. With a great creaking of sand and water clogged gears, he slowly managed to transfer into his more humanoid form.  
  
"Good dino." Blaster patter his crest. "Now take it easy."  
  
"Me Swoop not good dino..." Swoop growled weakly.  
  
"Well, at least you're feeling better."  
  
"As touching as this is, can we go now?" Skywarp shot a glance at Soundwave, who apparently had become de facto leader.  
  
Soundwave looked at the two Autobots on the ground. It was a rather pathetic sight. These were probably the last of the Autobot forces. Anywhere. No Decepticon likes to cultivate an impression of himself as a bleeding heart, but Soundwave had to admit he felt sorry for them.  
  
But Blaster was talking again. "...we could pay you, you know. When we get back to Moonbase One...or maybe earth...wherever..."  
  
"Oh, give me a break." Thundercracker groaned. "Why should we help you? It's not like any 'o you'd help us, if this was the other way around."  
  
Blaster bit his lip. It was true. He himself wouldn't be inclined to give any helpless Decepticons a ride back to Cybertron given the opportunity. Maybe he shouldn't have asked.  
  
"Perhaps an arrangement can be reached."  
  
"What?!" Both the Seekers spun around to stare at Soundwave.  
  
"What?" Blaster echoed, disbelieving.  
  
"Does everyone but me need their auditory receptors checked?" Soundwave asked dryly. "You need transportation back to Cybertron. We could probably use two extra sets of hands and eyes. Perhaps we can arrange something."  
  
***  
  
Megatron looked around, becoming increasingly dismayed with his surroundings. The river had seemed like sign from the gods at first; since there was no civilization on the beach, perhaps they would find some following the river. But so far all they had found was a very damp swamp.  
  
"AUGH!" Hot Rod screamed suddenly, causing the rest of the assembled company to jump three feet in the air. "EWEWEWEW!!!!!" he practically jumped into Optimus' arms.  
  
"Hot Rod!" The larger Autobot yelled. "What in the name of all that is holy is-"  
  
"That-that THING!!!"  
  
"And-and, that other thing!" Megatron gasped, mocking the younger robot. "Will you please shut up?"  
  
"It wrapped around my leg!" Hot Rod was practically hyperventilating. "It was all-all slimy and gross and slimy and -mmph-"  
  
Optimus clamped a hand over Hot Rod's mouth. "Hot Rod. Relax. We're in a swamp. You probably just felt a vine or something. There's nothing here that can hurt you."  
  
Suddenly a loud snarling noise came from somewhere ahead of them.  
  
"For Primus' sake, Optimus." Megatron muttered. "You should know better than to say things like that. The moment you start talking about nobody being able to hurt you, something or someone shows up who can. I learned that the hard way."  
  
"It-it's probably just a...a...." Optimus' attempt at brushing off the noise failed miserably.  
  
The whatever it was snarled again, louder this time.  
  
"It's getting closer..." Hot Rod whimpered.  
  
"Just a what, Optimus? Just a big nasty thing that can rip our heads off?" Megatron snorted.  
  
A branch snapped in the distance. Almost the second it did, Wheelie shot out from behind Megatron.  
  
"Hey--!" the white Decepticon, spun around just in time to see the little robot transform into what looked like a slightly demented version of a VW Beetle and speed off into the trees.  
  
"Wheelie!" Megatron yelled after him. But it was no use. He was gone.  
  
"Why do I get the feeling that whatever's making that noise is pretty bad?" Hot Rod continued whimpering.  
  
"Shut up, Hot Rod." Optimus said absently. He and Megatron both had their eyes riveted to the blind bend of the river where the noise seemed to be coming from.  
  
"Tell me you still have your fusion cannon, Megatron."  
  
"Do you see a fusion cannon anywhere, Optimus?"  
  
"Drat....."  
  
Another, much louder snarl resounded through the forest, accompanied by a loud splash. Then several dark figures could be seen swimming down the river.....directly towards the three Transformers.  
  
"Don't....move." Megatron said slowly.  
  
"They are coming straight at us and you want us to not MOVE?!" Hot Rod yelped, even though he was paralyzed anyway.  
  
"It will attract their attention, you imbecile."  
  
But apparently the creatures didn't need any movement to alert them to the presence of three unusual life forms. The leader of the pack shot up from the surface, barely a meter from Megatron. His comrades quickly followed him.  
  
Optimus breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh good. They're Transformers."  
  
"What?!" Megatron gaped. The creatures standing before them stood on two legs, but they were squat and reptilian, with several long rows of teeth jutting out from mouths larger than half Megatron's whole body. "You call those things Transformers?!"  
  
"Shush. Don't act hostile." Optimus let go of the trembling Hot Rod and moved to Megatron's side. The creatures, already tensely poised for attack, crouched as if they meant to pounce.  
  
"What are you doing, you idiot!?!" Megatron grabbed Optimus' arm as the Autobot began to take another step forward.  
  
"Relax. They're not all that different from us."  
  
"Oh will you please put the Doctor Dolittle act on hold?! They're unlike us enough to eat us!"  
  
"Be quiet. Here, I'll prove it. I'll use the universal greeting."  
  
"The universal what?"  
  
"The universal greeting. Now hush." he cleared his throat, shook off Megatron's hand, and stepped forward.  
  
"Ba weep granah weep ninny bong." he said in a voice loud and clear.  
  
If the situation were not so precarious, Megatron would have wasted no time in descending into howls of derisive laughter. But since his own life was being put on the line by Optimus' stupidity, he just stared.  
  
"Ba weep granah weep ninny bong?" Hot Rod echoed disbelieveingly.  
  
"Optimus, I think you've finally taken complete leave of your logic functions....." Megatron muttered.  
  
"Will you two shut up?" Optimus muttered over his shoulder. The creatures just looked confused. Well, might as well try it again.  
  
"Ba weep granah weep ninny bong." he repeated.  
  
The creatures pounced.  
  
***  
Springer pried a large piece of sheet metal out of a pile of what looked like ship parts. "Well, at least we have no shortage of supplies." he muttered.  
  
He swung his find onto his shoulders and made his way back to the ship.  
  
"Will this be big enough?" He held the metal up for inspection as soon as he was within earshot of Arcee. She looked down from her perch on top of the ship.   
  
"That should be fine. Bring it up here. Blurr! Did you find anything we could use for welding?!"  
  
"Absolutelypositivelydefinitelyhowsthis?!" Blurr was at Arcee's side before she had even realized he had been on the ground. He proudly showed her a incredibly well kept welding iron.  
  
Arcee stared in shock as she took it from his hands. "Where did you find this?"  
  
Blurr said something no one could possibly have been expected to understand and pointed to the south. Arcee shook her head in disbelief. This iron was.....well, not perfect, but as good as any you'd find in a workshop. In perfect working condition. What was something like this doing on a planet of garbage?  
  
"What's going on?" Springer asked, setting the metal down by the large hole in the hull.  
  
"Look at this." Arcee held up the iron.  
  
"Wow." the helicopter eyed it in disbelief. "Where did you find that in a place like this?"  
  
"I have no idea. I'd say ask Blurr, but I doubt that would do you much good."  
  
Springer chuckled. Blurr was long gone; running around the ship and checking various damages without actually doing anything about them. The same thing he had been doing for the past five hours.  
  
"Well I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but do you actually think someone just left this here?"  
  
Arcee glanced up at him. "What do you mean? You can't be suggesting THIS place is inhabited."  
  
Springer stood up and surveyed the terrain. "I guess you're right...I can't imagine anything living here....but still."  
  
"But still nothing. I thought you weren't one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Now bring me that sheet, we have work to do."  
  
Both the Autobots set to work, oblivious to the many sets of eyes watching them from a distance.  
  
"Stop thief! No welcome wagon hello stranger with that new coffee flavor for you! Offer expires while you wait. Operators...are standing by." 


End file.
